Gender Confusion
by phoenixyfriend
Summary: Deidara doesn't get angry when people mistake his gender. He actually finds it hilarious. So catching wind of gossiping Akatsuki members doesn't lead to lots of explosives. It just leads to lots and lots of trolling of his comrades. Sasori is not amused. Fem!Dei, but not. Sort of. No one's really all that sure, at this point.
1. Let the Trolling Begin

**A/N: I always read stories where Deidara absolutely **_**hates**_** being mistaken for a woman. Here, he just laughs at it, and of course, takes advantage of the confusion. He likes crossdressing, and finds it fun. This is generally a part of my head-canon in just about any Naruto story I write.**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara, many people agreed, could easily be mistaken for a girl. Until he spoke, he often was. Even after he opened his mouth and gabbed, people commented on the pretty, if flat-chested, young girl that was standing by the ugly old man in the Akatsuki cloak.

Most of the Akatsuki, excepting Sasori, avoided mentioning it in fear that Deidara would blow up at them, or barring that, would simply blow something up. The reasons Sasori was allowed to comment on it were simple.

One, he didn't have anything down there himself anymore anyway, so he couldn't really say that he actually was any gender on his own now.

Two, he was aware of Deidara's true feelings on the subject, which weren't, as most people would assume, anger or indifference.

In truth, Deidara found it all utterly hilarious, and greatly enjoyed messing with people's heads. So when Sasori mentioned how several of the others had at one point been in deep conversation about how to keep Hidan from mentioning the gender confusion that Deidara often caused for people, what was little Deidara going to do?

Roll with it and take advantage as such, of course!

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was a pretty good cook, especially compared to the rest of the organization, so he was often assigned that particular chore among any of the others (which was better than toilet duty, at least). His plan, then, began on one of the days that he was scheduled to make breakfast for the organization. Sasori was the first to come down and see, sadly, so they made small talk about the… changes before the rest of the organization came down, since they all slept and Sasori didn't.

"Why are you even doing this, brat?" Sasori asked, despairing of ever understanding his partner.

"It's fun. I like messing with people's heads, un. If even the organization is confused, then why not take advantage of it, un?" He rather _daintily_ spun around to take care of some waffles that were ready to be taken out of the waffle iron.

"You don't feel awkward doing this at all?"

Deidara shrugged, a flirty motion in his current ensemble. "Back in Iwa, about two thirds of my missions were about making my art, un."

Sasori grunted for him to continue, sitting in an armchair in the attached living room. "We'll skip the art discussion for now. The other third?"

Deidara giggled girlishly, and flipped a hand at him femininely, almost as if lightly swatting away a fly. He batted his eyelashes. When he spoke, his voice was light and breathy, very different from his normal voice. It was still rather deep though, making him seem seductive instead of like a teenage girl in a poofy skirt. "Why, infiltration of course! Couldn't you guess, danna?"

Sasori raised an eyebrow at the blonde. "You didn't grunt at the end. And why is your voice still low?"

Deidara shrugged, the motion causing his fake chest to bounce. "I learned not to for the sake of not getting caught, un. As for my voice, it's a bit uncomfortable to change it, so I was putting it off, since I don't use a genjutsu, un. I should probably fix it up now, though. The others will be coming down soon, un."

He reached up and began to massage his throat, making small noises to test it now and again to see if he'd gotten it right. Eventually, he settled on a high and girlish voice, the kind that drove men wild. "So? How do I sound, Dan-na~?" He drew out the last word, coming in close to Sasori and cupping the redhead's chin, his own head tilted flirtatiously.

"Infuriating. Now get away from me, brat."

Deidara pouted and moved away to tend to some pancakes, flipping one of them. "Danna! You're so mean!"

"Excuse me if I don't feel comfortable when my still completely human partner, who just happens to be just half my age, flirts with me, a thirty-two year old puppet, while acting like a gender-confused civilian."

Deidara giggled again. "You know, that could probably freak them out even more._ Would_ you be averse to pretending to be in a relationship?"

"Very."

"Aw." Deidara pouted, but soon perked up again. "So I do sound like a girl? Enough like one that the others will believe I am one, if only for a moment?"

Sasori shrugged. "Sure, I guess."

The blonde squealed. "That's great! Oh, the next batch of waffles is almost done. By the way, how do I look?"

Sasori rolled his eyes as Deidara spun and posed, finger to his lips. "Like a girl. Which begs the question, how are you going to hold that genjutsu up when Itachi turns his Sharingan on?"

Deidara snorted, a decidedly _un_feminine sound. "I'm not. I was lauded by the infiltration experts in Iwa because I never actually used a genjutsu."

Sasori raised an eyebrow. "Then how do you explain the curves, especially at a size like that? I've seen you in hotels; you're not particularly concerned about changing in front of me. I'm certain you've never had any before, so why now?"

Deidara raised a hand to his mouth as he giggled again. "Silly Danna! All I need is a strong corset and some specially molded clay." He bounced for a second. "They look pretty real, don't they, Danna?"

Deidara posed as Sasori stared at him, nonplussed. "…Sure."

"That's great!" Deidara clapped his hands together, and Sasori resisted the urge to smack his forehead.

"OI! BLONDIE! IS BREAKFAST READY?" A loud voice called, accompanied by equally loud footsteps.

"Yes, Hidan!" Deidara yelled back, and then stifled a few giggles as he heard the footsteps stop. He could imagine Hidan gaping in the middle of the hallway at the high-pitched voice that had answered his question.

Footsteps were thundering down the hallway a second later, and Hidan threw the door open. "What the f***?"

Deidara smiled at him and waved him over, acting as if what he was doing was no different from normal. "Would you like some pancakes? I've tried pretty hard on them, but Danna doesn't eat and I refuse to until I'm done cooking, so I haven't had anyone taste test. Try them?" He held up a plate several inches from Hidan's frozen and still gaping mouth, smiling cutely as he did so. "Please?"

"Wha-? Bu-? You…" He trailed off, still gaping. He then shook his head and pointed at Deidara, a scary look in his eyes. "You're a girl?"

Deidara tilted his head to the side and pretended to think. "Well… maybe. I'll explain when _every_one's here, okay? Do take a seat, sugar, they'll be a while, and I know you don't want them taking all the food."

He flounced off to work on some more waffles, leaving behind a gaping Jashinist and a plate of food on the table in front of him.

Sasori again had to try very hard to resist the urge to smack his wooden forehead. He succeeded, though barely.

o.o.o.o.o

One by one, the rest of the Akatsuki trickled in. One by one, they stared first a Deidara's undeniably female form. One by one, they then stared at Sasori, who was having great trouble with resisting the urge to smash something or smacking his forehead, and had settled for simply pinching the bridge of his nose and breathing deeply as a deterrent from succumbing to the general stupidity of the nearby Akatsuki and his partner's delight in confusing them.

Several, namely Kisame, Zetsu, and Konan, had reacted like Hidan, stumbling and stuttering over themselves as they entered the room, while Pein and Kakuzu simply stared for a few moments before shaking their head and settling down for breakfast.

Itachi, who had come in just a few minutes after Hidan, reacted _very_ differently, because he, along with Hidan later on, was subjected to Deidara's _flirting_. Words could barely describe how disturbed the poor man was.

"Please, Itachi-_kun?_" Deidara pleaded with him, holding out a plate with a waffle on it, drizzled in syrup with a slice of butter placed perfectly in the center. Itachi leaned back as Deidara pushed the plate closer again. "Please try it?"

"Brat! Leave him alone. You're about to give him an aneurysm." Sasori did feel bad for Itachi, but not nearly enough to actually get up, or enough to get Deidara to stop crossdressing.

"Maa~, Sasori no Danna, don't be mean!" Crocodile tears began to well up in Deidara's eyes, disturbing everyone even more than they already were. The blonde bomber darted over behind Kisame to 'hide.' He poked his head out and stared at Sasori fearfully. "Kisame-san, Danna's being mean!"

"Er…" Kisame was at a loss of what to do. He looked over at Sasori, who only stared back impassively, and then over at Itachi, who still seemed like he was in shock. He glanced back down at Deidara and reached over to pat Akatsuki's youngest on the head. "I'm, ah, I'm sure he doesn't mean it."

"Really?" Deidara grabbed his hand and held it, eyes shining.

"…Yeah…"

"Yay!" Another squeal, some more hand-clapping, and a shining smile were once again decorating the kitchen as Deidara flounced around.

"Brat."

Deidara spun around and ran up to the counter, shoujo style. "Yes, danna?"

"Everyone's here. Get it over with. I'm tired of this." Sasori and Deidara simply stared heatedly at each other, Deidara pouting and Sasori being his normal woodenly impassive self. Thus did several seconds pass, and then Deidara clapped his hands together cheerily again.

"Okay! Now," He turned on the rest of the Akatsuki. "How many of you a greatly confused right now?"

Sasori was the only one that didn't raise a hand; Kisame raised Itachi's, and Konan had to punch Pein lightly so that he would put his own hand up, but raise his hand he did. Deidara grinned.

"Great! Is there anyone here other than Sasori no Danna who is one hundred percent sure of what my gender _actually_ is?" Deidara chirped.

Not a single hand was raised. Sasori sighed heavily from over in his armchair. "Get on with it, brat."

"Ne~, danna, don't be mean." Deidara chided, receiving a nonplussed stare as his only response. "Well, whatever."

He turned back to his evil comrades. "Thing is, I actually heard you guys discussing my gender a few days ago." Several embarrassed blushes erupted at that. "So I'm going to have some fun with that. At this point, none of you can tell whether I'm a feminine boy pretending to be a girl to mess with you, or a girl that was crossdressing all this time for other reasons and only just decided to trust you enough to reveal herself."

He sighed dreamily and clapped his hands together in front of his chest. "Now, you get to play a game! You have to figure it out on your own! I'm going to pretend to switch genders every three days or so, and _that_'ll be _lots_ of fun. Really, you could have just asked, but I suppose that would have been so much more boring and absolutely _droll_."

"You're doing all this, dressing up in a Lolita dress, wearing makeup, acting like a ditz, and flirting with the man you've repeatedly tried to kill… all for the sake of your own amusement?" Kakuzu asked incredulously.

Deidara pouted, hands on hips. "The makeup isn't that bad; I wear eyeliner every day. The Lolita dress covers up a lot of skin, so I can cover up where I'm using clay to fake anatomy that I shouldn't have, depending on which one I actually am. Acting like a ditz makes me laugh, and the flirting leads to faces like Itachi's was a few minutes ago!"

He crossed his arms. "Besides, it's fun, and about a third of the missions I was sent on back in Iwa were infiltration missions, where half the time I needed to convincingly cross-dress. I'm used to it, and I find people's reactions hilarious to see."

Kakuzu crossed his arms, eyeing the dress. "…How much did that cost?"

Everyone that bothered to regularly show emotion gaped at him except Deidara, who simply smiled and said, "I made it! So not too much, and I can sell it when this is over, or when I outgrow it, if this little game lasts that long."

Pein finally deigned it time to interrupt after seeing the Ryo signs in Kakuzu's eyes pop up at hearing that Deidara could sew such expensive clothing. "Would you be willing to tell if I ordered you to?"

People tensed up at this, hoping that the insane stunt would be ended. Deidara tilted his head. "Hm… only to you, I guess. I kind of want to keep playing this game, but I guess you should know since you're the leader. Sasori already knows because he's my partner, but whatever." He continued to smile.

Cutely, of course.

Stifled groans made their way around the table, Hidan adding in a few curses as well. Konan spoke up, "Is there nothing we can do to convince you to stop this?"

Deidara shook his head. "Nope! I want to have some fun, and trolling you guys is how I'm going to do it! And if you're wondering about what kind of pronoun to use, then the answer is that I don't really care. Just stick to whichever one I'm pretending to be at the time. It's less confusing that way. Have fun at breakfast!" He skipped away, hand waving. Sasori followed a second later, adding in his own two cents.

"I'm not having anything to do with this, so don't bother asking."

Heads hit the table.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I've got, like, three different stories in the works that involve Deidara voluntarily and happily crossdressing, several of which I haven't even started. I just imagine him as the kind of guy that likes to mess with peoples' heads like that. And yes, he does look completely like a girl when he crossdresses. It's impossible to tell that he's a guy.**


	2. Rules, PMS, and Konoha Shinobi

**A/N: I'm continuing this, because apparently you guys like it when Deidara messes with peoples' heads. Here, I got people begging for it to continue, even if it wasn't scheduled to. WTF, guys?**

**Now, a note on the actual story. When Deidara is simply being talked about in general, he will be referred to as male. Otherwise, Deidara will be referred to by whichever gender s/he appears to be in that scene, simply so that it's easier to wrap your heads around it all.**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara had laid down three rules for the game. The rules were pretty specific and, as a general rule, made sense. They were even written out and posted up:

First, if you already know, you can't tell anyone else. Everyone has to come to their own conclusions. This also means that you can't bug Sasori no Danna about it or try to bribe someone else, not that Kakuzu would ever actually spend money on something like that…

Second, no one is allowed to go peeking in on Deidara while s/he's naked.

Third, is that there is no usage of the Sharingan. Doing so will be considered as bad form.

Itachi blinked at the list on the fridge and turned to look at the rest of the Akatsuki. "Is there a reason Deidara is isolating me in the rules in such a manner?"

Kisame shrugged. "He's isolating Kakuzu, too. Maybe there's chakra in whatever she's faking, so he needs to make sure you don't see what it is?"

"He's right about one thing. I would never waste my money on something as useless as this." Kakuzu commented.

Itachi glanced around. "Does anyone even have a plan, or ideas about how to go about this?"

"We do." White Zetsu threw in. **"But we're not telling.**"

"F***in' great." Hidan muttered. He didn't think that he'd be breaking the first rule if he asked Jashin-sama, but his God may not be so inclined to answer a question that was so insignificant. Hidan would still ask, but he didn't expect anything to come of it. Well, the pain he experienced from men and women did feel different when he did his voodoo-esque jutsu on them, so he probably only needed to get a small taste of Deidara's blood and he'd be able to tell, maybe. Though, he thought, there was that one time that he'd gotten _really_ confused because one of the ninja he'd fought had actually been a hermaphrodite, but he didn't think Deidara would mess with their heads quite _that_ much.

"She's a weird one, alright. Do you guys think he's doing this as revenge for forcing her to join Akatsuki? He was pretty much the only one that was forced into the organization instead of agreeing to it." Kisame mused. The others stared at him. "What?"

"You were switching genders with every pronoun." Konan pointed out. Kisame just shrugged in response.

"Yeah, well, it's the best I could come up with. I mean, you're not expecting me to refer to Deidara as an 'it,' are you?"

"Since Deidara has passed himself off as male since he first got here," Itachi interrupted, "I think it would be prudent to refer to him as such when we speak about him if the fact that he was in female guise at the time of discussed incident is not negligible. Are we agreed?"

Shrugs made their rounds as the nonplussed members looked at one another. The way Itachi had worded the question was a bit confusing, yes, but it was good enough that they got the gist of it. Besides, Itachi was probably going to be suffering more than anyone else if things proceeded the way they seemed they would, considering what the girly Deidara had set a precedent for earlier that morning.

"Just getting this out there, but why would Deidara pretend to be a boy if he, or she, were a girl? I mean, what would the reasoning for that be?" Kisame asked around. "Am I the only one that's confused?"

Konan frowned slightly. "It does make some sense. I'm the only woman in Akatsuki, and directly under Leader-sama's protection. Not to mention that, in the world of S-class criminals, women number far fewer than men, and are generally less strong physically. A female missing nin of any rank may pretend to be male to avoid sexual assault. Moreover, civilians generally see women as weaker, so a girl may assume the guise of a boy simply so that she may be hired. How many female terrorist bombers for hire, or even just female munitions experts of a sort, have any of you met?"

None of them had. Of course, none of them had met many bombers at all, but they couldn't really recall any female ones of the tops of their heads, even ones they'd only heard about in passing. Even coming up with more than a few S-class kunoichi other than Konan was proving to be troublesome.

"Well, let's just go with it for now." Kisame said, leaving to go to his and Itachi's shared bedroom, hoping to get rid of his aching headache by watching a few of his more exotic pet fish swim around a bit.

o.o.o.o.o

The sad thing was that it only took Zetsu three days to figure it out, and Hidan only a week more than that. Each had explained their reasoning to Deidara, if there was any, and agreed not to tell anyone, though Hidan, of course, did so with a lot more gratuitous swearing.

Deidara had actually begun to laugh when Zetsu explained his reasoning. It was so _simple_, and yet the plant man was probably the only Akatsuki member that would get it like that.

He'd simply snuck into the Iwagakure records department and checked for Deidara's birth certificate. So simple, but no one in Akatsuki had skills as good as Zetsu's, and anything else, like IDs and common gossip, could be explained away as Deidara lying about it all the way back then, so Deidara didn't even have to worry about someone else finding out the same way.

Hidan had, to even his own surprise, actually been told by Jashin-sama, who found the predicament all too amusing, but told his follower because he felt the need for some entertainment. Deidara had simply stared at Hidan for a few seconds before asking a few more questions to try and discern if Hidan actually got accurate information from his god. After finally accepting that, yes, Hidan actually seems to have some sort of mental connection to the being he worships, Deidara grinned and told him that he'd still have to suck it up and put up with the blonde's flirting once it began. A short scuffle later, and Hidan was agreeing to it despite his disgust at said flirting.

The rest of the Akatsuki… weren't quite so lucky.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori was the only one that got a warning about it beforehand, though it only occurred two weeks into Deidara's little prank. Said warning consisted of lots of chocolate and the questions that came from the buying of the aforementioned sweets.

"Why do you have a crate of chocolate, brat?"

Deidara, who was currently in male guise, simply grinned. "I'm faking something that happens to most women, un. I can play it off as having been hiding it along with just about everything else so far. It shouldn't be that hard, un."

Sasori didn't take his eyes off of the chocolate, almost wishing he was human again so that he could get a taste. "That doesn't answer my question."

Deidara's grin turned malicious. "Danna, you're what, thirty two, un? Even if you only look fifteen, I'm assuming that you do indeed know what PMS is, un."

Sasori blinked. He blinked again. Horror dawned on his face. "No. Oh, no. Brat, please don't do this. We don't need the base blown up simply because you feel the need to fake everything about your gender. Look, I'm actually even saying please. Don't do this, Deidara."

Deidara simply laughed. "Oh, Danna, you say the funniest things, un. If I'm going to pretend to be someone or something, I'm pulling out all the stops. They are going to regret ever bringing me into the organization, and I am going to have fun making it so, un."

Sasori groaned and turned back to his work, following the simple procedure that he'd devised to help deal with the menace that Deidara had become: ignore it and hope it goes away.

o.o.o.o.o

"Give me back my chocolate!" The shout could be heard throughout the base, punctuated by loud thumps as Deidara jumped to try and get the chocolate away from whichever member had stolen it; obviously, whoever it was happened to have a more than just a few inches of height on the blonde. Itachi buried his head back in his pillow, hoping to drown the voices of the Akatsuki's two loudest members out.

"Aw, is it that time of month, little b****?" Hidan's voice rang out, mocking the blonde.

"Yes, it is! So give! It! BACK!" There was a crash. Itachi tried to ignore it, but then realized what it was that he'd just heard. Whether real or faked, there was going to be a definite influx of, well, _everything_ concerning the blonde in the next few days. The flirting would increase; the emotions would increase; and of course, stronger emotions would mean an increase in lots of bombing. Everything would be torture.

"Go away before I blow you up, you stupid zealot!" An explosion was heard throughout the base. "I can have chocolate with my breakfast if I want, so there!"

Itachi resisted the urge to whimper, because Uchiha don't do such things that are so obviously weak. At least, not usually.

Another crash echoed from below.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi's day only got worse from there. The second he'd come down to breakfast, a—rather pretty, though he hated to admit it. Her chest must have been, what, a B-cup, maybe a C? Why was he even thinking about—sixteen-year-old blonde girl had latched onto his arm and was chattering into his ear about this and that. She was nowhere near as annoying as some of his fangirls back in Konoha, not that he'd ever mention that to her. Just the other day, Deidara had tried to blow him up, cackling _his_ little blond head off all the while. Now, here _she_ was, pushing her chest against his arm, leaning up close to his ear, and giggling in a way that probably would have been endearing if he weren't still traumatized from the fangirl hordes that had begun to show up in Konoha back when he was eight.

It just made the situation worse, really. If Deidara had simply chosen one gender and _stuck_ with it, Itachi would have handled it much better. He could deal with constant bombings, and had until the 'unreveal.' He could deal with mad flirting, even if somewhat less efficiently and sanely than the bombings. But the constant switches that Deidara exuded threw him for a loop. It was messing with his head far more than just gender-switching would have. Hate him or love him, just choose one already!

Deidara would have had a little smirk on her pretty little face if she'd heard his thoughts. As it was, she had simply adorned an innocent and happy smile as she walked Itachi over to the absolutely _wonderful_ breakfast she'd made, and the dango and pocky that she'd made exclusively for him. Hidan had a plate of ribs in front of him, and, despite his missing arm, courtesy of Deidara's earlier tantrum, was tearing into it voraciously. Itachi wasn't quite sure that barbecue was meant to be a breakfast food but—

"Kisame! Get away from those pancakes! They're not done yet! Move or I'll blow your head off!"

But even he knew not to mess with a PMS-ing woman. Especially not when said woman was an S-class kunoichi. Real or faked, it just wasn't worth it.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi should have realized, really. When he and Kisame had gone to visit Konoha in the aftermath of the destruction wreaked by Orochimaru, the base had been left with only Leader-sama, Konan-san, Deidara, and Sasori to occupy it. Given that Deidara had recently developed an obsession with him, whether it actually was hateful or loving, Itachi really should have expected this to happen.

He and Kisame had just begun to face off against a trio of Konoha Jounin, when a spider-shaped bomb had landed in between the two groups.

"Hello, Uchiha! I hope you weren't bored without me trying to blow you head off, un!" Deidara taunted from his position atop a giant clay bird. A small red speck could be seen next to the blonde, which called down momentarily.

"I'm not dealing with him when he's like this. He's all yours, Uchiha. I'm not getting involved in the brat's messed up schemes."

"Shut up, Danna, un!"

Itachi didn't really have to struggle to keep his face straight, but Kisame was having some trouble keeping the exasperation and trepidation from showing on his face.

"And just who is that?" The red-eyed kunoichi, Kurenai, thought to ask.

"Deidara." Itachi answered shortly. "Akatsuki's mad bomber."

Said bomber dropped out of the sky and landed in front of Itachi. He thrust a scroll into the older man's chest. "Here, un. Leader-sama sent me to give this to you, un."

Something beeped loudly, and Deidara glanced down at his watch. "Oh! It's three o'clock, un."

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a storage scroll, traipsing off into the woods. "Oi, Konoha-nin! Be nice and please make sure to wear the Uchiha down for me, un!"

Itachi blinked for a second, and if there had been any color in his face at all, it would have all drained out right then.

"Oi, Itachi. Isn't three when Deidara, er, switches?" Kisame asked.

"Unfortunately."

There was a long pause, the trio of Jounin in front of them shifting uneasily as they realized that they were being ignored, especially as the clay bird finally drifted lazily down in front of them and let down a squat old man in an Akatsuki cloak. Itachi noted in the back of his mind that Sasori must have used the time that the bird took to get back into Hiruko, because that was all that the Uchiha saw right about then.

"Sasori, isn't there any way—?"

"Not a chance."

Kisame swore at that. "Even in the middle of a battle he has to go and do this. It'll be a wonder if anyone takes Akatsuki seriously at all, soon."

Sasori's tail whipped about in mild agitation. "Of course not. Deidara's hobby may be a bit odd, but you have to admit that it would probably come in handy in confusing opponents enough to cause them to make a mistake."

Kisame reached up to scratch at his neck. "It's still embarrassing."

"It's Deidara. The whole reason he's doing this is to troll everyone, Akatsuki especially." Sasori deadpanned. The Konoha Jounin were starting to get a bit antsy. What was going on?

"I'm, ba~ck!" A singsong voice called. High-pitched and feminine, it was nothing like the deep voice they'd heard earlier, and yet…

The blond that had skidded to a stop in front of them after practically flying out of the woods would almost definitely be the same person as before, if not for the fact that said blond appeared to have spontaneously switched genders, and was now wearing, of all things, a Lolita dress, patterned black with red clouds after the Akatsuki cloaks.

Fluffy things like that did _not_ belong on the battlefield.

"What is going on?" Kakashi asked slowly, as if talking to a temperamental child or a wild animal.

"This is Deidara." Itachi pointed to the brightly smiling girl. "This is the same person that recently gave me this scroll."

"But…" Asuma was just as confused as the other two.

"Hi! I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to greet you earlier, but better late than never, right?"

Yeah, _really_ confused.

"YOSH! IT IS THE MOST UNYOUTHFUL AKATSUKI! WHAT ARE SUCH UNYOUTHFUL PEOPLE AS YOURSELVES DOING BY THE MOST YOUTHFUL KONOHA!" Kisame narrowly missed being kicked in the head by a green-clothed blur with an overly loud voice.

"Stalking Itachi-kun!" The girl answered brightly, reaching over to hug the Uchiha. Itachi's eye began to twitch discernably.

"Making sure my partner doesn't do something monumentally stupid like nearly blow herself up by accident. Again. The official reason is to deliver a scroll to Kisame and Itachi, but as you can see, that was already taken care of."

"Hunting the nine-tails." Kisame added in, hoping to rescue at least a scrap of Akatsuki's reputation. "That was the original reason."

"Leaving." Itachi spat out through grit teeth as Deidara continued to rub her head against his chest, despite the fact that she was nearly his height in her platform Mary-Janes.

"And that is what we should be doing as well. Let's _go_, brat. You can maltreat him back at the base later." Hiruko's tail reached out and snaked around Deidara's waist, pulling her away from the Uchiha and over towards the giant clay bird. She crossed her arms on top of the tail's ridges as she let Sasori drag her away.

"Aw. Too bad. Bye Itachi! C'mon, Sasori no danna, I heard about this great restaurant in Nami no Kuni with _amazing_ bakudan. I wanna go there for lunch."

The redhead and the blond were gone a second later.

"So, was that a boy or a girl?" Kurenai finally asked after several moments of awkward silence.

"The question that you have asked is one that we've been trying to answer for months." Itachi said, and Kisame finished.

"Honestly, we haven't got a clue. Very few people do, and we are not of that number." He pulled out Samehada. "So, are we gonna fight or what?"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: You know that Deidara only did that to embarrass Itachi. Poor guy has to deal with so much because of this.**


	3. Why Hidan Isn't Actually Evil

**A/N: This chapter explains how Jashin can both have a sense of humor AND still demand sacrifices, since some people seemed interested in that. It makes the first part of the chapter a bit dramatic, though. Still, it helps me actually make Hidan somewhat sympathetic.**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was lying on 'her' back on Hidan's bed, staring at the ceiling as she tossed a clay sphere up and down. At this point, Hidan was the only one near her age—they were only three years apart, after all—that knew the answer to the Gender Question, so she'd understandably grown rather close to him. Not as close as she was to Sasori, of course, but the two were about as close to being best friends as a pair of nukenin could get.

"Hidan, I'm _bored_."

Hidan didn't pause in his prayers.

"Danna kicked me out of our room for being too loud. I wanna do something _fun_. Hidan, are you listening to me?"

"I'm trying not to." Hidan said, seamlessly going back to his prayers.

Deidara pouted. "Fine, I'll wait for you to finish up."

It took another seven minutes and thirty-two seconds—Deidara kept track for lack of anything better to do—for that to happen.

"Yay, you're done!"

Hidan flinched and put a hand to his ear. "You're loud and high-pitched. Can you at least fix your f***in' voice back to normal when you're not around people who don't know?"

Deidara gasped, shock written across her features. "Of course not! I'm an infiltration specialist; I can't break character at any time!"

Hidan's expression was remarkably deadpan. "Ah. Of course. I should have known. Silly me."

"Meh." Deidara shrugged. "Haters gonna hate. How're things going with your dear 'Jashin-sama?'" She smirked at him.

Hidan actually frowned. "I need to send up more sacrifices, and soon. Jashin-sama's starting to get a bit worried."

Deidara blinked. "He gets worried if you don't send up enough sacrifices?"

Hidan nodded, before glancing at Deidara with a serious expression. "I've been given permission to tell you this, but you can't tell anyone else, alright?"

Deidara stared for a few seconds, and then nodded seriously. "You've been keeping my secret for months now, so I can keep yours, no problem. I'm listening."

Hidan took out a piece of paper from the desk in his and Kakuzu's room, and plucked a pen out of the cup on the desk. He drew a trio of large circles, and what looked like roads between the three. He drew a symbol in each one, though Deidara only recognized the Jashinist symbol in the bottom circle.

"There are three realms that exist for us. We live in Kami's realm, that of the living." He pointed to the top left circle, writing in 'Kami' above it in surprisingly good handwriting, and 'Living' below.

"When a person dies, they generally go to the realm of the dead, which is under the Shinigami's control." He wrote 'Shinigami' and 'Dead' above and below as he had with the first circle.

"The last dimension," He pointed to the bottom circle, the one with the Jashinist symbol, "Is the realm of the demons, and is run by Jashin. This doesn't mean that Jashin himself is a demon, just like Kami and Shinigami aren't human. Jashin himself is the most laidback of the gods, but there's a problem there.

"Chakra exists in everything, right? The thing is, chakra in creatures is created by their bodies and all that, but that doesn't explain the chakra that's in the air or the ground or anything else that isn't alive."

He drew his hand along the 'road' between the Realm of the Living and the Realm of the Dead. "Energy is generated by the traffic of souls. With the Living and Dead, the soul lives and dies in the Realm of the Living, and then comes to the Realm of the Dead. It stays there for about two hundred years, and then goes back to the Realm of the Living to be reincarnated. Kami and Shinigami have enough energy to keep their worlds running like that, but it locks Jashin out of the loop. The problem is that the gods themselves can't do anything to fix this. The demon realm's been running low on energy ever since the Juubi was split and sealed, and it's been on the verge of a power outage for the past couple decades."

Deidara held up a hand for Hidan to stop and just stared for a couple of seconds. "The what? I thought the bijuu only went up to nine?"

Hidan frowned at her. "Right, I have to explain the Juubi thing. The Juubi used to be the most powerful and malevolent thing on the planet, but the Sage of the Six Paths split its chakra in nine pieces, which became the bijuu, and sealed its body in a giant rock, which became the moon. Are you with me so far?"

Deidara blinked owlishly, her eyes rather glazed. "Give me a few seconds on that."

Hidan waited patiently until Deidara finally nodded and gave him the go-ahead. "The Juubi use to be Jashin's most powerful subordinate, but it got cocky and rebellious. I won't go into the whole story right now, but I will say that Jashin didn't exactly give it permission to do all the weird s*** that it did while in the Realm of the Living, or even to come here at all. When the Sage of the Six Paths sealed up the Juubi, it did several things, though the good ones are the only ones that humans generally focus on. The creation of the moon probably drove a couple of species extinct,"

Deidara blinked in surprise.

"The Juubi's chakra dissipated into the air and a bunch of other things and caused the meta-passages between the Living and Demonic Realms to stiffen up and make travel more difficult."

Deidara tilted her head. This was way more interesting than she'd expected it to be.

"And it sent a message to all the demons in Jashin's realm that they couldn't come to the Realm of the Living without being persecuted, which was confirmed by a few that did try to go so that they could deliver messages to the bijuu, asking for them to come home."

Deidara nodded, somewhat understanding. "Okay, I think I get it. It's interesting and all, but what does that have to do with your sacrifices?"

Hidan nodded. "A few of the demons managed to get messages to several humans and set up Jashinist temples. When someone or something was sacrificed at one of those temples, the soul would go to Jashin's plane."

"Plane?"

Hidan shrugged. "Plane of Existence is the technical name for that level of differentiation, even if we call them realms. When the soul went to Jashin's realm, it generated energy there, and it was kept there for a while, generally only a few months, before being passed on to the Shinigami. If a soul goes through a lot of pain, especially right before it dies, it creates more energy upon its entrance into the Demon Realm. It also generates more while leaving. Like I said, the traffic of souls creates energy, not the souls themselves. There's also the fact that sentient souls like humans, demons, and summons generate more energy. Demon souls can't be sent to Shinigami too often either, because their presence is corrosive there. Sending a soul from the Realm of the Dead through Jashin to be reborn generally makes weird abilities pop up in the reborn soul, even weirder than normal Kekkei Genkai. Not to mention that when the Sage died, and every time he's been reborn and died since then, there's been trouble with the demon and dead barriers that make transfer of souls troublesome for all the parties involved."

Deidara glanced down at her gloved hands. Hidan caught the glance and smiled grimly. "Let me guess, that's not actually a part of that kinjutsu that you stole? And it's not a Kekkei Genkai, either, huh?"

Deidara shook her head, biting her lip. Hidan chuckled softly. "Yeah, looks like you were one of the unlucky ones that snuck through. Situations like yours are the reason they try not to do stuff like that. It generally creates new Kekkei Genkai, and that's a problem for everyone.

Deidara bit her lip. "But why is it such a big deal? Can't Kami and Shinigami, I dunno, donate energy or something?"

Hidan shook his head. "No, and more's the pity. The fact that they can't is the biggest problem. Send out a hundred units of energy, and only about seven units will make it across the borders. That's even more of a problem, because if any one of the three realms runs out of energy completely, it collapses. If it collapses, the other two do too, and _everything_ is destroyed. And now…"

Hidan buried his head in his hands. "I'm the only one of Jashin's priests that's left. If I _don't_ make sacrifices every couple of days, the Demon Realm starts running even lower on power. Sacrificing is the only way to force a soul through the barrier at this point, and even that only happens if the priest doing the sacrificing, like me, has undergone countless rituals, been hit with a lot of specialized seals, goes through daily prayers and tons of other things."

Deidara stared at him, and a small smile came onto her face. "So you're pretty much all that's keeping the universe from collapsing, then?"

"Just the dimension, but yes." Hidan answered, completely deadpan.

Deidara blinked at his clarification but let it go for the moment. "Why join Akatsuki instead of going around and recruiting people?"

Hidan shrugged. "It was for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's not like I even had much of a choice, and I know that you didn't join willingly yourself."

Deidara nodded, acknowledging that.

"Second, I get more access to people that I can kill this way. Not by much, but I do get more kills like this. Third, I can't exactly go around recruiting people to be Jashinists because all the temples were destroyed; I don't know anyone that can build me a new one; temples are necessary for a number of the rituals; and I'm a nukenin that almost no one is likely to trust."

Deidara snorted a bit at the list, but motioned for him to continue.

"And the main reason is that Jashin-sama told me to."

Deidara facefaulted. She got up, giggling. "That's it?"

Hidan shrugged. "We're collecting bijuu, right? Jashin-sama said that there's several people influencing events here, even if he can't really tell me who for some reason. At least one of them is planning on resurrecting the Juubi."

Deidara's eyes widened. "Wait, you mean…"

Hidan nodded, face set. "If the Juubi is resurrected, all three gods will work together to pull him back into the demon realm if the barrier is still too stiff, and Jashin-sama will do it alone if things go as planned and the barrier opens up, and then imprison it for insubordination and almost destroying, well, everything. The chance that its resurrection will trigger the barrier to weaken again is small, but they're willing to try almost anything at this point."

Deidara fiddled with ribbon around her waist. "Um… is there any way I can help?"

Hidan shrugged. "Do your job for Akatsuki, I guess. Like I said, turning someone into a Jashinist priest takes a lot of resources that I just don't have available right now, and you're not suited for it anyway. Long range doesn't work all that well for sacrifices."

Deidara nodded, grin on her face. "Okay, then! I'll do my job to help you save the world!"

Hidan's hands shot up to his ears. "Still too high pitched, you d*** blonde!"

Deidara flipped him off, simultaneously using said finger to pull down an eyelid so that she could stick a tongue out of her other hand _and_ her head mouth.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori stared at his partner. The charade, for lack of a better term, had been going on for several months now, so he really should have been used to Deidara's insane antics at this point. He really shouldn't have been all that surprised at the newest development. He really should have just let it go. He really should have done a lot of things, but he didn't.

"Is that a girl mag?"

Deidara turned another page, legs kicking back and forth above her as she lay on her stomach. "Uh-huh."

Sasori resisted the urge to sigh. "…Why?"

"I'm keeping up on the newest fashions." Deidara stuck her strawberry flavored lollipop back in her mouth, tracing a girl's eye shadow pattern.

Sasori groaned silently. "Why bother? All you ever wear is Lolita dresses, and those are only ever patterned after Akatsuki cloaks."

Deidara looked up at him, grin playing on her lips. "Sasori no Danna, you have been a fifteen year old boy for the past seventeen years. I don't expect you to understand fashion."

"And you have been a sixteen year old boy for the past ten months. I don't see much of a difference." Sasori deadpanned.

Deidara giggled and flipped over to lay on her back, magazine held above her head and legs splayed out childishly. "The difference is that I spend half my time as a sixteen year old _girl_. My mindset is completely feminine right now. I feel the urge to read about fashion and drive myself to read celebrity gossip, even if I don't really want to do the second one. The fashion is something that I want to know about even as a man, so… Besides, your fashion sense is, like, twenty years out of date."

Sasori stared at her, as emotionless as a puppet could be. "You are one of the oddest people I have ever met, Deidara. I'm rather unsure if that's a good thing or a bad one."

Deidara shrugged, still looking up at her magazine. "Go with it being a good thing. It'll make you feel better about yourself. Hey, look! It's a black and red hat on a hairband! That would go great with…"

Sasori sighed and walked over to his desk, ready to start reworking the arm to one of his puppets again and fix the aim in its senbon launcher. Deidara could wait. Hopefully, she could wait for a very long time.

o.o.o.o.o

Kisame actually figured out Deidara's gender faster than anyone gave him credit for. He just kept his knowledge to himself, for two reasons.

One, Itachi still didn't know. It would be a lot harder to be around the Uchiha if Kisame admitted to knowing, while Itachi still had to deal with Deidara being… Deidara.

Two, it was amusing as h***.

The reasons were pretty understandable, really. It really was too bad that Deidara figured out that he knew pretty soon after he had.

"How?" The question fell from both their lips.

Deidara tilted his head, smirk present. "Okay, you first, un."

Kisame shrugged. "How did you know that I figured it out?"

Deidara waved a hand at him flippantly. "Infiltration, remember, un? Been there, done that. I know the signs of someone getting the info they were looking for, un. My turn: how did you figure it out, un?"

"Blood."

Deidara stared blankly. "Heh?'

"I've got a better sense of smell than most people, and I'm especially tuned in to the smell of blood."

"Like a shark, un." Deidara murmured. Kisame nodded in affirmation.

"Exactly, but I'm not going to explain why; that'd take too long. In any case, the days you faked a period you didn't usually smell like blood. Simple enough, but I doubt anyone else would be able to smell it."

"Zetsu might have."

"He already knew, though."

"True." Deidara allowed. He laced his fingers together behind his head, grin on his face. "Do you find all this as amusing as I do, un?"

"No." Kisame answered promptly.

Deidara's face was a picture of horror. "What, un?"

Kisame stared him dead in the eyes. "I think it's funny, just not as funny as you do. It makes Itachi irritable. When he's irritable, he's not exactly fun to be around. And since I'm his partner, I _have_ to be around him."

Deidara pouted. "You're no fun, un."

"I wasn't trying to be."

Deidara glared at him, single eye narrowed. Then he grinned nastily. "I'm gonna go bug Uchiha now, un."

o.o.o.o.o

"…Itachi…" Deidara whispered, poking his head out above the couch. He grinned as he saw the Uchiha stiffen. "I've got about three dozen bombs on standby right now, un."

His grin widened as he saw Itachi's muscles tense, ready to fight.

He chuckled, a manic gleam entering his eyes. "Run, Uchiha. Run, un."

Insane laughter rang loud that day. So did terrified screaming once Pein found out.

And there was much rejoicing. Not.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Did you like my method of making Hidan not evil? I've never really seen anyone do it successfully, so I hope I managed to do it without making it too contrived. I got the power outage idea from ****The World God Only Knows****, which I enjoy. I'm not sure if it counts as Shonen or Shojou, though. It's a bit weird.**


	4. Androgynous Clubbing & BrainBroke Konan

**A/N- Fridge Logic. It's fun. Here's mine, involving Deidara's intelligence level, which is 4.5 out of 5, according to the Databooks. That's equal to Kakuzu and higher than Sakura, even Post-Timeskip, and Sakura is smart enough to quickly devise antidotes to Sasori's poisons (Sasori has a full 5 out of 5, in case you were wondering). Kakuzu is… um… yeah…**

**Oh, and this chapter is dedicated to the Fourth Wall. Give the Wall a round of applause, people. It keeps you safe from the psychos on the other side of it.**

o.o.o.o.o

"What are you doing?" Sasori was inside Hiruko, so Deidara couldn't really see his expression, but the blond could guess.

"Mixing volatile chemical compounds." Deidara turned back to his measuring, making sure not to go overboard. Everyone knows, er, _knew_ what happened, er, _had_ happened the last time.

Fr***in' fourth wall. You know what I'm talking about, right readers? Yes… you do… of course you do…

"You understand chemistry?"

"No s***, Sherlock." Deidara wasn't wearing his cloak, though a baggy shirt was still somewhat requisite if he wanted to keep the rest of Akatsuki from accidentally walking in and seeing his lack of… baggage.

"Who?"

Deidara froze for barely a second, still on the verge of pouring the compound into the beaker, back turned to Sasori. Well… f***.

"No one you'd know. A fictional character… sure, let's go with that…"

Sasori stared at him for a bit. "You referred to me as a fictional character? _Really_."

"He's apparently an extremely good civilian private detective, in a world where ninja are non-existent. So… sarcasm… yeah…" Deidara was still frozen in place, his hand just barely twitching.

"Do I even want to know the full truth?"

"It involves Hidan, so probably not." Deidara was still posed to pour the compound, waiting for Sasori to just leave already. "Um… these are very likely to explode and may possibly cause you to catch fire since you're made of wood, so if you don't mind…"

"You do realize you could just ask me to leave if you've begun to feel awkward, don't you? Also, isn't your arm getting tired?" Sasori deadpanned.

Deidara blinked in slight surprise. "A bit? Maybe. Er… why are you being so open?"

"Put the beaker down." Sasori ordered.

"Yes, Danna." Deidara did as he was told, pointedly ignoring just how subservient those two words had made him sound. He sat down on a chair, swinging it around to straddle the back and lean his head on it.

"Now, what exactly are you trying to do here, and why?" Hiruko slowly lowered itself to the ground, though Sasori still didn't bother coming out.

Deidara moved a lose strand of hair out of his face, tucking it back into the ponytail that was, for once, holding back all of his hair instead of just part of it; it was better to keep his hair from accidentally dangling down into corrosive chemicals and having sight from both eyes, especially from the sight on his left, was extremely beneficial in such delicate work.

Yes, a shinobi who focused on explosives could do delicate work.

He just preferred not to.

"I need a way to use explosions without using chakra; we both know that there'll probably be some incidents in the future where using chakra isn't an option for one reason or another, but I still need to blow something up. There are multiple ways, but certain chemicals are more effective under different conditions, so I'm trying make some that work well in an extremely humid environment right now."

"At least that explains why if feels like a Mizu no Kuni summer in here right now." Sasori muttered under his breath. "Why did you never mention this… interest of yours before?"

"You didn't ask." Deidara leaned his head to the side, a lazy grin spreading across his face. "I have many hidden talents, Danna…"

Sasori stared at him, made all the creepier by the ugly face presented by Hiruko. Deidara simply continued to grin at him. "…I'm sure I don't want to know."

Deidara raised an eyebrow, lazy, _creepy_ grin still present.

"I'm going to leave now. I don't want to get caught up in what you're trying to do here."

"Bye, Danna!"

As Sasori left, Deidara's grin grew wider and he turned back to his precious chemicals. Time to see just how well these would work.

It was a good thing that Sasori had burn cream with him.

o.o.o.o.o

"Hidan, we're going clubbing."

Hidan looked up to see Deidara standing in his doorway, currently in…

What mode was s/he in?

"Blondie…"

Deidara grinned manically.

"What the h***?"

"Like I said, we're going clubbing."

"What are you _wearing_?" Hidan pushed himself up until he was leaning back on his bed instead of just being sprawled across it on his back.

"The most androgynous, Visual Kei-type clothing that I have. Can you tell anything about my gender?"

"No. See? This is why I think you're weird. You enjoy messing with people's heads, including your own, apparently, far too much for it to be healthy."

"Moi?" Deidara put a hand to… _his_ chest, posing in fake outrage.

"No gratuitous French, it's bad for you."

"I thought we weren't supposed to mention that we knew about the fourth wall since the Holmes incident." Deidara smirked.

"Wipe that smirk off your face, you little blonde b****."

"Soon as you come clubbing with me, albino w****."

Beat.

"Alright, just give me a minute to put something decent on."

"We're going clubbing. What part of that is decent?"

"Shut up, Deidara."

o.o.o.o.o

Five people.

Two girls and three boys.

That was how many people had come up and asked Deidara to dance, and that was only fifteen minutes after they'd gotten there. Hidan had been asked by two girls—not terrible, but not exactly the best either—and accepted one of their offers.

Deidara declined all of his. He did, however, accept the drinks that the boys offered. He then easily told each of his suitors that he was their own gender, leading to embarrassed apologies on their part and condescending smirks on Deidara's.

Hidan and Deidara were currently sitting at the bar, Deidara leaning against him in the laziest way possible. A pair of girls caught their eyes and ambled on over settling in next to them.

"Hello, boys." The one with dark purple hair purred, running a finger along Hidan's shoulder. He glanced her over, noting that, on the classic one to ten scale, she would easily qualify as, at the least, an eight.

"Ladies." He nodded to them, confident smirk on his face. He took another sip from his drink, eyeing them from the side. Yes, very nice…

"Yo." Deidara did the little chin jerk that boys always do to acknowledge someone.

"We couldn't help but notice you two over here together and… _alone_, you see…" The redhead said, giggling lightly and slowly twirling her hair around her finger. She bat her eyelashes at Deidara who smiled back, a teasing light in his eyes.

"Is that so? Well, I don't think it's fair to say that we're _completely_ alone." Deidara slowly leaned over and lay his head on Hidan's shoulder.

"Get off, s***head." He bounced his shoulder to try and get Deidara off, but the blond persisted.

Deidara smiled at the girls, who were staring in abject fascination at the interaction between the two.

"Are you two, you know, lovers?" The purple-haired girl asked, twisting her fingers across each other.

"No, Deidara's just an idiot that likes messing with people's heads way too much. Get _off_, moron!" Hidan finally succeeded in pushing the androgynous blond from his shoulder.

"Oh Hidan, how could you? I thought we had something!" Deidara pretended to sob, eliciting giggles from the girls and a condescending snort from his pale-haired compatriot.

The redhead leaned in close to Deidara's shoulder, giving him a look that was 'smoldering.' She spoke in a tone that was part teasing, part seductive. "Well, would a lovely-looking boy like yourself like to come dance with me?" The purple haired girl asked Hidan the same question, and Deidara heard Hidan get up to do just that.

"I'm a girl, you know." Deidara told her smirking and leaning back, taking another sip of his drink. "Don't worry, a lot of people make the same mistake. I do tend to dress as ambiguously as possible."

The redhead eyed him for a few seconds, and then tilted her head to the side. "Wanna dance anyway?"

Deidara blinked, and then chuckled. He quickly downed the rest of his drink and got up, "Well, I guess I can't say no to that."

o.o.o.o.o

"I'm not even going to ask." Hidan said as the two walked back to the base.

"Aw, why not?" Deidara was leaning on him, obviously a little tipsy. Hidan had a relatively high alcohol tolerance, so he was fine if it came to fighting off a bandit, or if necessary, a band of hunter nin.

"I don't want to know what you did to make _that_ happen." It was odd enough just _seeing_ it; he didn't want a play-by-play of the events leading up to it too.

Deidara wiggled his eyebrows at his friend. "Sure you don't. But hey, Het is Ew, right?"

"Deidara?"

"Yes, Hidan dear?" Deidara said, and then yelped as a hand smacked the back of his head. "Ow! Dude, what was that for?"

"Stop talking. Like, right now. Seriously, shut the f*** up, okay?" Hidan glanced down at the short blond next to him and rolled his eyes. "I hope Sasori isn't p***ed off at me for letting you get drunk."

"I'm not drunk, Hida-kun!" He hiccupped. "I'm just a little… _buzzed_."

He wiggled his eyebrows at the older of the two again, "I could buzz something of yours too, if you want."

"Deidara! Shut up!"

It was an unconscious Deidara that was finally handed over to the puppet-master. "If he wakes up and starts making weird sexual innuendos that barely make sense again, don't send him to me."

o.o.o.o.o

Konan was, obviously, frustrated. Not quite as frustrated as, say, Itachi, but she was still one of the three Akatsuki members that hadn't figured out Deidara's true gender, and one of the two left that actually cared. Kakuzu didn't actually give a… well, an anything, really. He was too stingy to bribe anyone. The only reason he was interested at all was because the clothes that Deidara regularly went through could be just as regularly sold for a profit. He was, after all, Akatsuki's treasurer.

Konan was different. As stoic as she appeared to be most of the time, Konan was a genuinely curious individual. She had been Akatsuki's only female, and was relatively proud of the fact that she could keep up with all the insane S-class criminals that inhabited the base.

And then Deidara came and turned it all on its head.

No, it wasn't quite that bad, she had to admit. But having Deidara around was more like having a pair of nearly identical twins that were never around each, rather than just having one person. Zetsu probably could have explained it better, considering the fact that he had, somehow, secured a degree in psychology. She wasn't going to ask him, though.

So when Konan saw Deidara and Hidan dancing Thriller in the middle of the living room, with Deidara in girl mode and covered in fake blood, there was really only one thing to do.

"What are you two doing?"

"Dancing, Konan, dancing. We are but zombies brought to life! AHA!"

"Dancing because the little b**** asked me to, and I had nothing better to do today anyway."

Konan stared, waiting for more information, but none was forthcoming. "Why couldn't you do it in one of your rooms?"

"Sasori is working with poisons. We might inhale noxious fumes or something. And after I got drunk last week, Danna doesn't want me doing anything that might have me acting weirder than usual again."

"Kakuzu would cut my head off in a spurt of anger several seconds in." Hidan shrugged, and then stopped dancing and leaned against the wall next to Konan. They watched as Deidara continued to dance, a look of amusement and unadulterated giddiness gracing her face.

"How did you even figure it out?" Konan asked conversationally.

"I thought we weren't supposed to f***in' tell? It's not like you to break a rule this way, Konan-san." Hidan smirked over at her, looking down the scant few inches between their heights.

"I'm not asking for the answer, just for information regarding how you arrived at it." Konan answered primly.

"What if I were to say natural cunning?" Hidan smirked over at her.

"Really? Only a week of 'natural cunning' and you managed to figure out what Itachi, Kakuzu, and I haven't?" Konan deadpanned.

Hidan started laughing, which soon turned to cursing as a kunai found its way into his gallbladder, courtesy of Deidara. "F*** you, blonde b****!"

"I know you'd love to, but I still consider myself a little young for that!" Deidara called back, provoking a long list of half-hearted insults and curses from Hidan. Konan just rolled her eyes.

"So are you willing to actually tell me, then?" The bluenette asked as they watched Deidara spin in a circle, dancing to the tune of, well, something. Neither of them knew, nor did they care.

Hidan shrugged. "It's not like it'll actually help you, you know. I'm pretty much the only person in the world that could have done the s*** I did."

Konan raised an eyebrow, and when she spoke, there was obvious doubt in her voice. "Really."

"Jashin-sama thought it was funny and told me for the h*** of it." Hidan deadpanned.

Konan stared at him, not blinking at all. Her mouth was open just the slightest bit, though not a hind of sound escaped.

"Er… are you okay, Konan?" He waved a hand in front of her face. A panicked expression crossed his face. "Deidara! I think I broke Konan's brain!"

Deidara stopped dancing and flounced over, an overdone look of horror plastered across her features. "No! You broke Konan! You monster!"

"How can I ever forgive myself?"

"How can I ever again associate with you?"

"Oh, the humanity!"

"Oh, the duplicity!"

"I'm a monster!"

"A villain of the worst sort!"

"I should be burnt at the stake!"

"Commit seppuku like the dog that you are!"

"Deidara's clay would be too good a death for me!"

"Subverted in that you cannot even die, fiend!"

"Oh, woe! Woe betide the—"

"What the h*** are you two doing?" The monotone was easy enough to point out once they turned to see Sasori standing in the doorway. He looked stoned, no different than usual.

"No, no different at all." Deidara muttered.

"What was that, brat?" Sasori asked, smoothly raising one eyebrow just enough to change the tone of his expression. Paired with the crossed arms and slight frown, the confused disapproval, as odd of a combination as it was, was obvious.

"Hidan broke Konan!" Deidara stepped to the side, face blank, and pointed accusingly at Hidan.

"Just her brain!" The albino protested.

"I'm getting Pein." Sasori muttered as he walked off. The two younger Akatsuki members continued to argue, and when Konan finally came to, it was to see Deidara and Hidan trying to out-Ham each other once again.

o.o.o.o.o

"Onward, my valiant steed! Into the sunset we ride!" Deidara pointed straight ahead, despite the fact that:

A) It was a quarter to three in the afternoon. The sun was nowhere near setting.

B) The sun did not set in the north, which just so happened to be both the way that she was pointing and the way that the Akatsuki base lay.

C) She and Sasori were deep in Fire Country, and should have probably tried to keep quiet in order to try and not have angry ninjas after them.

Of course, that wasn't exactly the most pressing concern for the blonde of generally ambiguous gender.

"Get off of Hiruko, brat!" Sasori yelled from inside said puppet, waving his scorpion tail around to try and get Deidara of the puppet's back.

"NEVER! Go, my rodeo bull, go!" Deidara was holding on to the back of the Akatsuki cloak that Hiruko wore. She waved her other hand in the air, hollering as her beloved Danna tried to dislodge her.

Neither of them really noticed the Konoha nin that had been attracted by the yells, screams, and giggles.

"Um, Gai-sensei?"

"Yes, TenTen?"

"Those are Akatsuki, right? As in, S-class missing nin?"

"Yes, I believe so."

…

"Wow, their standards must be a lot lower than we thought."

Neji budged in there. "Or perhaps they simply follow the idea that more powerful shinobi are generally more… eccentric?"

TenTen glanced away from the spectacle in front of her to look at her pearl-eyed teammate, who jerked his head towards their teacher. "I guess that's possible, but don't you think that they're acting a bit more stupid than eccentric? What kind of an idiot makes that much noise when in enemy territory?"

"My kind!"

TenTen spun around with a kunai in her hand, aiming directly at the voice that had come from behind her. The cheery-looking blonde hopped to the side, easily avoiding her kunai swing, despite the fact that she did all that upside down and in impractical-looking heeled boots. "Aw, come on. I'm not an S-class for nothing, you know. Give me a bit of a challenge."

"What is _wrong_ with you, brat?!" The _extremely _irritated voice that yelled that sounded as though it wasn't used often. Or rather, that the speaker spoke relatively often, but not very loudly.

"Hidan's not nearby, so I have no one to be crazy with!" The blonde called back, once again completely ignoring Team Gai.

"So you were treating me like a horse just because your best friend isn't here?"

"Aw, you know that that's not what he is to me, Danna…" Deidara pouted at Sasori, walking closer to him, and further from Team Gai, who were just standing there. This was perhaps their first time actually seeing someone that beat their teacher in terms of blatant disregard for social norms.

"In that case I don't want to know what you two are to each other." The puppet-man turned away.

"Sasori no Danna, you pervert!" The blonde raised both hands to her mouth in fists, squeezing her eyes shut and blushing. She shook her head—and most of her body, come to think of it—from side to side quickly. "Hidan and I aren't like, we aren't like that! You know you're the only one for me!"

"Yes, yes, whatever. Great, now let's go before you do something stupid."

"Okay!" Suddenly chipper again, Deidara practically bounced after him, hands held out to her side in a decidedly cute fashion.

"Eh-hem!" Gai coughed, prompting the two missing nin to turn around. He took a stance, confident grin on his face. "You have trespassed upon Hi no Kuni soil and must now—"

"Whoa, his eyebrows look like a pair of giant, fuzzy caterpillars! And so do the weird kid's, the one that's got the same terrible fashion sense!" The pure _happiness_ radiating from Deidara's face as she said that and pointed at their group was completely at odds with anything the Konoha nin were ready to expect. Except, Gai could remember something…

"You were the two missing nin that fiendishly fled upon my arrival to my compatriots' altercation with Uchiha Itachi!" He pointed at them, no longer smiling. Now he was almost glaring, as unyouthful as it may have been.

Deidara glanced at the sky for a second. "Well, that was an odd thing to put in…" She muttered.

"Your unyouthful deeds shall not go unpunished!" Gai proclaimed grandly.

Deidara's mouth fell open in understanding. "Oh, now I get it…"

She frowned. "Wait, you forgot Kisame! You forgot my fishy friend!"

Gai tilted his head to the side. "Who?"

Deidara just stared at him in surprise. "You fought him! He told me that you fought him!"

Gai continued to stare, and his students shifted on their feet nervously. "I apologize, miss, but I don't know who you're talking about."

"You know, tall blue guy, looks like a shark, has a big-a** sword on his back? No? You still can't remember?"

"Brat, hurry up! They're just a genin team, we can ignore them. Make one of those transport birds of yours and get us out of here!"

"I can't!"

There was silence for a few seconds, as the puppet turned towards Deidara ever so slowly. "And why not?"

Deidara pointed to her watch. "Wait a few seconds."

The tail on Hiruko began to twitch much as one's eye would. "You have got to be kidding me, brat."

"Nope!" The blonde said brightly, as the watch beeped. "A~nd that's my cue!"

She pulled a scroll out of her pocket, and the Konoha nin got on guard, not that they hadn't been already, and were ready to spring at a moment's notice.

"Byakugan!" This small hiss of a word came from Neji as he quickly activated his doujutsu…

And promptly stumbled back in horror. "What, what are you two?"

His head swiveled, though barely, between the two missing nin, before landing on Sasori, flitting around his form for a few seconds, and then moving quickly on to Deidara, dipping for a just a second, and glancing between her hands. He quickly ran off into the woods.

Team Gai was surprised at the sound of their normally stoic teammate puking up his guts as the blonde glanced at her partner. "Do you think it was the hands?"

"Just hurry up so that we can leave."

"Thank you, Danna!" She ran off into the woods. "Oh, and remember not to kill the white-eyed boy until I've asked him a few questions later!"

There was silence for a few seconds, Sasori and the remaining three members of Team Gai staring at each other. They all tried to ignore the ambient noise, rather than think of what was going on in the woods.

"Hands?" Lee asked. "Why would Neji react so unyouthfully about a young lady's hands?"

"My idiot of a partner and I aren't exactly normal people. Deidara is, to say the least, odd in both body and temperament."

"Jump, Danna!" A voice, far deeper than the one they had heard earlier from the blonde, cried out. "Incoming, un!"

The puppet, surprisingly agile, jumped and landed on a giant clay bird that was sweeping dangerously close to the ground. "Did you really have to do that?"

"Of course I did, you old fart, un. My whole M.O. consists of explosions. If I can show off with something in any way, I'm _going_ to show off, un." The blond was now male. Not unmistakably so, but they'd spent enough time around Neji to recognize the signs.

Which begged the question, of course, of how they hadn't realized earlier. Unfortunately, Deidara had sent the bird too high for even Gai to reach with a simple jump.

"We'll leave in a second Danna, I promise, un. Just one thing first." The blond MALE turned back to the Konoha nin, eyes narrowing on Neji as he walked out of the forest in a surprisingly noble manner, considering the fact that he'd just been emptying his stomach. Deidara pointed at the Hyuuga. "You, white-eyed pretty boy, un."

Neji glared up at Deidara. It was surprisingly amusing.

"Yeah, you, un. What do you say about me, male or female, un?"

Neji seemed disbelieving at that, but answered anyway. "I couldn't tell. There was something with high chakra density over anything that could be considered a giveaway in concerns to gender."

Of course, there was a sneer on his face towards the end, pale as it was from his impromptu dispensation of bodily wastes from the wrong orifice.

"See, Danna? I told you I could even fool a doujutsu."

"I never said you couldn't. Now, let's leave. None of these people would be worth turning into a puppet, so just leave them one of your pathetic excuses for a piece of art and get us out of here."

"Bah, my art is an explosion, un. It lasts for just a moment, as all true art should. You and your puppets are boring, unmoving, un. What art is timeless? What kind of meaningless art doesn't change, un?"

"Just get us back to the base, brat." There was audible strain in Sasori's voice. "I don't like to be kept waiting, and I don't like to make other people wait. _So stop procrastinating_."

Deidara stared at him with a deadpan expression on his face. "Yeah, yeah, whatever, un."

He turned back to Team Gai, still on the ground; he reached into his clay pouch surreptitiously. "Wow, you guys are _idiots_, un. You tried to pick a fight with a pair of S-class missing nin, and then don't run away on the multiple occasions that they tried to leave without bothering you, un. Must be something about your stupid Will of Fire, or whatever it was. Oh well, too late now, un. C1 is on its way."

The palm of his hand was pointing straight out at Team Gai, who stared in surprise, fear, and mild disgust as the mouth on it opened and dispensed a clay bird.

"Really, un, you should have run when you could." He brought his hands together as his words finally reached the Konoha nin that were finally trying to get out of range. Poor idiots.

"Katsu." The grin on his face was maniacal and very, very happy.

"Now, get us the h*** out of here, brat."

"Danna, you broke the mood, un!"


	5. Sing, Fight, Hide, Hurt, Scare, Rules

"_I don't know what to think,  
He knelt to the ground  
and pulled out a ring and said—"_

"What the h*** do you think you're doing, brat?"

Well, what the 'he' in the song said obviously wasn't that.

Deidara turned around. She saw Sasori standing next to the CD player, finger on the off button.

"Danna!" She squealed, ran forward, and glomped him. Unfortunately, at least in Deidara's opinion, the glomp did not achieve its goal of knocking the puppet master over as intended. She hung onto his waist anyways, ignoring his irritated scowl.

"You said the wrong words. The next line was supposed to—"

"I don't care. It's loud and annoying. Stop it."

Deidara pouted, stood up, and stalked off. "Hidan would let me!"

"Hidan is more of an idiot than you are."

"I'm not stupid! And Hidan's not an idiot either. You really need to reevaluate your fellow Akatsuki members."

"Stop talking, Deidara."

"Call me Dei-chan and I might!"

"No."

"Danna!"

Sasori tried not to show how much the bomber was irritating him.

o.o.o.o.o

"Blood."

"Fire."

"Blades."

"Explosives, un."

"Sign of Jashin."

"Fireworks."

"You're a heathen."

"You're a zealot, un."

"I can't believe I consider _you_ my best friend."

"Trust me, the feeling is mutual, un."

Hidan was in Deidara's room, and the blonde bomber in question was currently painting his nails. As is apparent, they were arguing. Even they weren't quite sure what exactly it was that they were arguing about, but they were.

"I want some play-doh, un."

Hidan turned to look at his so-called best friend and snorted. "Seriously? How old _are_ you?"

"Seventeen."

"S***, really? I thought you were still sixteen. When was your birthday?"

"Remember when Uchiha was all sulky because of his little brother ran away to Snake-face or something, un?"

"Yeah. Okay, I can understand why you didn't mention while he was like that. But you could have told me anyway!"

Deidara's eyes grew wide, his voice full of wonder. "Really?"

"Stop that."

"Stop what, un?" Deidara asked innocently.

"I hate you."

"Right back at ya, un."

"I like you more as a girl."

"What, you don't want to tap this fine piece of a**? Don't swing this way?" Deidara teased, smirk on his face, hand posed on his hip.

There was silence for a few seconds.

"Holy s***. Are you actually gay, un?"

The zealot turned his head away, arms folded, face flushing. "Bisexual, actually. And I'll thank you to _not_ go spreading it around the base."

"No worries, un." Deidara raised his hands in acquiescence, careful not to mess up the polish. "Why bother? Why care? I switch genders every chance I get; I'm not going to be biased against someone for batting for both teams, so to speak. I've already decided that gender identity is a useless label, and I've been crossdressing for _years_. H***, I'm not even sure which way I swing, un. Not sure it really counts as the same thing, but still."

Hidan nodded stiffly, still turned away. Then a shout caught his attention.

"Aw, that tastes disgusting, un!"

He turned to see Deidara shaking his head. "The h***?"

"I got some nail polish in my hand-mouth, un!"

Hidan burst into laughter.

o.o.o.o.o

"WAKE UP, BRAT!"

Deidara felt something smash into his head and sat up woozily. "Ow…"

He looked up, head swimming, and saw a splotch of red. "Danna?"

"What. Are. You . Doing. Sleeping. In. Hiruko?" Sasori said through gritted teeth.

"Having a bath, what do you think? Sleeping, un."

"And why couldn't you have used your own bed?"

"… Oh yeah. I was hiding from Hidan, un."

"Why?" Ah. Well, with that tone of voice, Sasori's current place on the scale from 'mildly irritated' to 'stark raving mad' could be easily found. He was at approximately 'livid' right now.

"If Kakuzu suddenly starts trying to kill Hidan because several crates of parrots and Spam suddenly show up in his PO Box, it totally wasn't my fault, un." Deidara glanced away from Sasori's shadowed face, poking his index fingers together in a completely innocent way.

Silence.

"Danna?"

"Brat." Sasori's head raised, and he suddenly lifted a scary-looking chainsaw above his head. It was on fire. "_Run_."

"S***, un."

o.o.o.o.o

"Sasori, you are responsible for your partner. You are also one of the only members of Akatsuki that I can trust as a medic. You caused serious damage to your partner in a fit of temper that I usually only expect from Kakuzu and Hidan. _Fix him_."

"No."

"Sasori," Pein said. "I'm fairly certain even you cannot survive having your soul ripped out. As it is, we need your spy system, so I'll just put it like this: Fix Deidara, or I'll have Itachi burn your puppets."

Hey look! Sasori's showing emotion!

"Burn, burn, burn, baby, burn!" Deidara crowed.

"Yo, Dei? How many painkillers did that f***er give you? Hello~?"

o.o.o.o.o

"Danna, your glare intoxicates me, un." A giggly sigh.

"I hate you." A very flat monotone.

"Hidan, you're my very best friend, un. Like, _ever_."

"That's nice." Hidan choked out, trying not to laugh.

"Itachi, you're really pretty. Kakuzu's a sweetie too, though, un."

No answer, just exasperated sighs. Sasori resisted the urge to bang his head against something.

"Kisame's even nice to our enemies. I don't want to turn him into sushi. Zetsu, you're not eating my big blue fishy."

"Er… thanks?"

"**Why the h*** not?** Don't worry Deidara, we won't. **He's probably not chewy at all.**"

"Hey Hidan?"

The immortal looked over at the blonde on the couch, who was high on way too many painkillers. "Yeah?"

"I want have your babies, un."

Kisame did a spit-take.

"Hey, look, rain! Leader-sama, you're only supposed to make it rain outside, un!"

"Leader's not here right now." Hidan informed him. He seemed to be the only one willing to actually talk to the blonde bomber right then.

"Oh." And Deidara continued to babble.

Kisame leaned over to ask Zetsu a rather interesting question.

"Deidara does realize that he's male right now, right?"

"I'm not really sure. **H*** if we know.** Maybe you should ask Hidan.** What use would he be?**__He's Deidara's best friend, right?"

"Erm… right." Kisame turned back to Deidara, only to Hidan unconscious on the floor with a rubber chicken in his mouth, Deidara laughing like a loon, and Itachi and Kakuzu watching on with expressions of barely discernible horror. Sasori was on the floor in pieces, presumably by choice.

"What did I miss?"

o.o.o.o.o

"I said that?" Deidara began to laugh. "While in guy mode?"

Hidan shrugged. "Then Kisame did a spit take and you blamed Pein."

"I… what?"

"You thought it was rain."

Deidara bit her lip, trying not to let herself laugh. "Hidan, please don't let anyone give me more painkillers than the bare minimum anymore."

"Yeah, it's on the list with not letting you drink anymore."

"C'mon! I'm seventeen and an S-class criminal! Why should I care that I'm supposed to be twenty to drink?"

"It's because you get weird. You make sexual innuendos constantly, ones that you never intend to follow through on, and they don't even make sense half the time."

"I do?"

Hidan palmed his face. "Yes. You do. You propositioned me after we went clubbing._ Five times_."

Deidara started laughing, bending over double despite the fact that she was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed as if she'd planned to meditate.

"H-holy _s***_! I'm so sorry, Hidan!" She continued laughing. Hidan just stared at her with a bored look on his face.

"I hate you."

"Nah, you _love me~!_" Deidara scooted up to him, splaying a hand across the Jashinist's bare chest, batting her lashes with a bashful smile and a blush on her cheeks. "You _really_ lo—"

Hidan shoved her off the bed.

"Ow…"

"I thought you were supposed to be the smart one. Why do you keep doing stupid c***?"

"It's usually fun…"

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto stared at Jiraiya. The man seemed to be broken.

"Come on, Ero-Sennin! We only left Konoha a few weeks ago!"

"I can't tell. I'm a super-pervert, so why can't I tell? Male? Female? What is it?" Steam seemed to be coming out of his ears as he whispered. He was staring a cheery blonde girl that was eating at a restaurant with an ugly, short old man, thought the old man wasn't exactly eating.

"So that's how Hidan ended up losing all the yeti fur we won from the giant cricket on the carousel." She finished her story just loud enough for Naruto to overhear.

"I will never understand you, brat." The voice was rough and low.

The girl tilted her head. "Why not? It's not like I'm speaking French or anything…"

"Because you are completely insane, and so is that idiot you call a best friend."

"Meh." The girl shrugged and got up, reaching behind her to take a cloak off the back of her chair as she left a few coins on the table. The old man moved, and got out from behind the table. Naruto froze as he saw what was on the skirt of the girl's dress and on the cloaks that had been hidden from his view 'til then.

They were Akatsuki.

"Ero-Sennin…" Naruto began tugging on Jiraiya's clothes, eyes wide. "Ero-Sennin, we need to go."

The pair of nukenin were still talking and walking. They weren't really walking towards the Konoha nin, but they weren't exactly walking away either. They would pass by a few meters away if they kept going the way they were.

The blond girl glanced over and giggled. She came over closer, smiling. "Confused, is he? I wouldn't expect any less from the self-proclaimed super-pervert. Most people just say femme and go on. I do take care to hide absolutely everything, after all. He's good at this."

She was talking to Naruto the whole time. At the end, she grabbed his shoulder, still smiling, with a somewhat less malicious air than he'd expected.

"Tell him that, would you? Oh, and we're not coming after you yet, so don't worry. Kisame and Itachi-kun were just checking up on your location last time, m'kay?" She ruffled his hair, still smiling. "You're an interesting kid, Jinchuuriki no Kyuubi."

She walked off, leaving Naruto shaking in his shoes next to a still unresponsive Jiraiya.

She was sweet, he thought of the other blonde, sweet like poisoned honey.

Deidara just walked over to Sasori and started telling another story.

Still smiling.

o.o.o.o.o

"That was stupid." Sasori said gruffly.

Deidara shrugged. "Maybe. I'm sure he would've attacked if I had done the same or if I started leaking killing intent, but that's why I played up my 'sweet' and feminine side as much as possible, and made myself as indirectly intimidating as I could."

"That was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. He recognized the cloaks, too."

"Of course, Captain Obvious." She rolled her eyes. "I mentioned that to him directly. Left him shaking in his boots, and didn't say a single threatening thing the whole time."

"From what I'd heard from my spies, I somewhat expected him to attack us outright."

Deidara shook her head. "Look at the situation: a single twelve year old Jinchuuriki against a pair of nukenin with only catatonic back up in a crowded civilian marketplace? Kid wasn't gonna do s***."

"You got lucky." Sasori said, still staring straight ahead.

"Whatever. The two of us could have, at the least, held them off long enough to get away." Deidara stopped after deciding that they were finally far enough away. "You want to fly the rest of the way? Kusa's pretty far from here."

"Very well. Just remember that it's futile to try and get me airsick, as you so enjoy doing."

Deidara smirked. "Aw, you know I wouldn't do that, Danna."

She got no answer.

"You're such a killjoy, sometimes, you know?"

o.o.o.o.o

Pein sighed in exasperation. Running a criminal organization was not as enjoyable as one might think. It caused a lot of stress, you know.

"You met the Kyuubi?"

"I only met its Jinchuuriki, Leader-sama. I didn't meet any giant foxes, un." Deidara reported, fiddling with his ponytail. Sasori resisted the urge to face-palm.

Pein stared at Deidara impassively.

"You can't take a joke at all, can you, un?"

"Did you meet the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki or not?"

"We did."

"And?"

"And nothing, un. I talked to him for a few seconds to scare the c*** outta him, and then we left after giving him the fright of his life and the old guy some mental trauma."

"Old guy?" Pein questioned, eyebrow raised.

"Yeah, I heard he was a super-pervert. Maybe he was just getting conflicting signals from me. I was in girl mode then, too."

"_Who_ was this 'old guy'?" Pein asked through gritted teeth.

"Jiraiya of the Sannin." Sasori said before Deidara could open his mouth. The blonde shot his hunched-over partner a reproachful look.

Pein's eyes narrowed. "…I see. How exactly did you give him mental trauma, as you put it?"

"You know how he writes that one series, and he's a super-pervert or whatever, un? I think that, 'cause he saw me in girl mode, he was confused 'cause he was getting mixed signals concerning what gender I was, un. He's probably got, like a sixth sense for it or something, un." Towards the end, he was whispering with a hand next to his mouth, like he was telling some huge secret.

"Don't be flippant."

"Okay, Leader-sama, un." Deidara moped.

Pein sighed, and raised a hand to his head as if suffering a migraine. "You two are dismissed."

"Hai, Leader-sama."

"Understood, Leader-sama, un."

As they left, Konan blended in out of the shadows, coming to stand directly next to Pein, the Deva Path.

"Pein…"

"We'll leave it."

"He's gotten a new student." Konan stared at the papers on the desk, right where Jiraiya's name was.

"I don't know whether to hope he trains the new one better to redeem himself for the mess with us, or hope he does worse so that we don't have as much trouble taking the Jinchuuriki down." Pein mused, flipping through a few of the files.

"…Did you notice how unstable Deidara's getting?"

Pein looked over at the blue-haired woman, questioning. "Deidara's always been unstable. Most S-Class nukenin are."

Konan shook her head. "I meant the personalities he has for both of his gender roles. They're bleeding into each other."

"I don't see how that qualifies him as unstable. Let it go for now, and if it becomes a problem, we'll have Zetsu do an analysis."

"Alright… Nagato."

o.o.o.o.o

"There's a rules list for Akatsuki?" Deidara blinked in surprise. "Whence came this?"

Hidan shrugged. "Apparently, it only came out this morning. It's going to be updated every week or so."

"Huh. Are my game rules there?"

"Yeah."

There was silence for a few seconds.

"Let's go check it out."

**Akatsuki's List of Rules, for both present members and to warn future members, after they join, of what they should expect of their behavior.**

**1. Deidara's Gender Game rules are to be followed, no matter how stupid you think they are. They only come first in the list because these rules are already written out. The rules for the game are as follows:**

**a. If you already know, you can't tell anyone else. Everyone has to come to their own conclusions. This also means that bribery and blackmail is banned.**

**b. Second, no one is allowed to peek in on Deidara while s/he's naked.**

**c. Third, is that there is ****no**** usage of the Sharingan. Doing so will be considered as bad form.**

**2. Don't throw a fit about Deidara. Just ignore it. This isn't so much a rule as it is a bit of friendly advice, but it is a good idea to do what we're suggesting here. It's just better for your sanity this way.**

**3. If you were present for the following incidents, fondly dubbed as the "Noodle Incidents" by Hidan, you are not to speak of them. If you were not present, ****do not ask**** unless you wish to suffer great mental trauma in learning them. This list will be expounded upon as new incidents occur. Try not to add to the list.**

**a. The Spam and Parrots Incident**

**b. The Yeti Fur and Giant Cricket Incident**

**c. The Recycling Incident**

**d. Any incident that involved Orochimaru prior to his defection**

**e. The Rubber Chicken Incident**

**f. The Aristocats Incident**

**g. The Psychologist Incident. Never again, Kisame. Never again.**

**h. The thing with the stationary**

**4. Don't touch Sasori's puppets. If you are curious about the consequences of doing so without permission, ask Deidara.**

**5. Don't mock Jashinism or interrupt one of Hidan's rituals. We don't care about how atheistic or agnostic you are, we don't need to hear him ranting again.**

**6. Don't touch Kakuzu's money, or imply that he has a fetish for it. He has a short temper and we don't like to see it triggered. Hidan is the exception, but that's because he can't die.**

**7. Don't mention Itachi's little brother.**

**8. Don't mock Kisame or Zetsu's looks. Zetsu might decide that you look tasty, and while Kisame will not do anything, it's tacky.**

**9. If Zetsu is looking at you hungrily, just get out of there.**

**10. If you give Deidara alcohol or any type of drug outside of a medical situation (such as painkillers), YOU are responsible for his actions. There's a reason we only let Hidan and Sasori do this.**

**11. Don't touch Itachi's pocky.**

**12. Do not mock art. Do not take sides. Do not MENTION art unless you are either Sasori or Deidara. We don't need to add more fuel to the fire.**

**13. Treat Konan with the same respect you would offer to Pein. Especially when she's feeling out-of-sorts.**

**14. If you feel the need for a one night stand, don't bring your lover into the base. It's a secret base for a reason.**

**15. Kakuzu is not a pimp. He doesn't need a cane for that.**

**a. He does not need a cane for his age, either.**

**i. Don't mention Kakuzu's age. He's proud of it, but it gets annoying.**

**16. If Hidan and Deidara do anything weird, try not to get involved or stare.**

**17. Don't kill fellow members.**

**18. Deidara: you pay for anything you blow up in the base.**

**19. Sasori: You can't turn any of the other members into puppets, no matter how annoying you think that they are.**

**20. No harems. I don't care what your justification is, there are ****No Harems****.**

**21. Don't touch anyone else's weapons. This goes especially for Samehada, considering it's apparently sentient and hungry, and Kisame is very protective of it/her.**

**22. To be continued…**

Deidara stared at the list for a bit.

"I think he's being a bit biased against me."

"That's because you cause as much trouble on your own as the rest of us do together. You were responsible for three of the noodle incidents."

"True… you wanna go get drunk?"

"I thought the rules said… Wait, it just says that I'd be responsible, not that you're not allowed…"

"_Exactly_."

Hidan palmed his face. "I'm going to regret this, but fine, let's go."

"A'right!"


	6. Wait, There's a Plot to This Mess?

** A/N: Aw… Fluff! Yeah, this chapter starts out with a little friendship fluff. I think it's cute.**

**IT'S NOT SASODEI. Sorry, just have to make that clear. No romance on that front, just friendship.**

**Oh, and I've started ignoring the fourth wall. It keeps badmouthing me, so I told it that it would be fired if it kept on back-sassing me. It threw a tantrum and then went on a paid vacation.**

**If you can't tell, the fourth wall and I are having a few creative differences right now.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_People aren't born intrinsically good or evil. They are born intrinsically stupid."_

_-Some guy in my history class, while we were discussing Karl Marx and Communism. I'm sure you can figure out how this was pertinent to the conversation._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara lay on the bed, snoozing away. He really liked his sleep.

"Dei…" A hand was on his shoulder and shaking him. He swatted it away and burrowed deeper under the covers.

"Dei, wake up, seriously." The hand was shaking him again. Bad hand…

"No… I wanna sleep…" Deidara moaned, pulling the covers tighter around his body.

"F*** this…" The voice said, and seconds later, Deidara's wonderfully fluffy covers were being pulled away from him in a single swift motion, spinning him off his bed and onto the cold, hard ground.

"Ow…" Deidara rubbed at his backside, where he'd hit his tailbone. "D***it, Hidan, what the h*** was that for, un?"

"Apparently, Kisame got sick yesterday. We need someone to make breakfast."

"Why me, un?" Deidara climbed up off the floor, and grabbed a hairbrush. He ran it through his rather tangled locks—doesn't that sound so wonderfully luxurious and presumptuous? Locks, locks, locks of hair—and glared at Hidan, as if this was all his fault.

"Itachi's sick too; Kakuzu refuses to come out of our f***in' room for some reason; no one trusts Zetsu near our food; I can't cook for s***; Sasori said no; I really don't wanna f***in' ask Konan or Pein, because Pein scares me." Hidan rattled off.

Deidara looked at him, nowhere near amused. "I hate this place, un."

"Well, that's f***in' terrible for you, but quite frankly, I don't give a s***."

"B******, un." Deidara muttered, cracking his back before walking off to take care of breakfast.

o.o.o.o.o

One week later, on the way back from a mission:

"Atchoo!" Deidara sneezed, and then reached up and rubbed a tissue to his nose. His nose was clogged, his stomach was rebelling against him and any food he put in it, and he had a pounding headache.

"Keep up, brat." Sasori threw the comment over his shoulder, showing absolutely no sympathy for his partner's sudden illness.

"I'b tryi-g, un." Deidara stumbled, and then leaned heavily against a tree, groaning. "I tink I'b gonna hurl…"

It Sasori took another three hours to decide on a campsite, and two of those three hours involved also _carrying_ a very sick Deidara with Hiruko's tail and trying not to let the blond throw up on him. He eventually found a nice, sheltered cave and brought the bomber inside and swaddled him in the two blankets and a few spare cloaks that he had brought along in case the clothing on one of his puppets was damaged.

Deidara was feverish, and despite all expectations to the contrary, didn't seem to be hallucinating. He seemed to be having a few odd dreams, yes, but that was no different than normal.

"Deidara." Sasori tried to shake him awake, gently. He sat the blond up and leaned him against the wall of the cave. He held the bowl of soup up to Deidara's face. "This is good for you. It'll help you get better faster."

"M'kay, Danna…" Deidara muttered, and then reached out blindly. His clogged sinuses had gone down a bit, but the fever was worse than even what Kisame and Itachi had dealt with. That was probably because Kisame and Itachi hadn't been on a mission on a time.

"No." Sasori pushed Deidara's hands down, ignoring the whine of protest. "Open your mouth. I don't trust you not to spill this all over yourself."

"Heh. Di'n't know you cared…" Deidara smirked up at him, eyes barely open. "Yer a nice guy, Danna…"

Sasori rolled his eyes. "No, I'm not. I'm only doing this because if you die, I need to get a new partner, and that would be annoying, even more annoying than just dealing you. Moreover, Pein would be angry if I let you die over a simple flu."

Deidara was smiling a little now. "Denial…" His voice had a little sing-song tone to it, but it was ruined by a hacking cough.

"Just eat the d*** soup, brat." Sasori said gruffly, trying not to let his worry come through into his voice.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori, as a hologram, stood in Pein's office.

"So we'll be a little late coming back while I take care of him."

"Right." Pein pinched the bridge of his nose. "How long do you think it'll take for you to come back?"

Sasori shrugged. "I'm not sure. Judging by how long it took for Kisame and Itachi to get better…"

"Itachi's still sick." Pein pointed out, interrupting.

"Itachi also has a weaker immune system than most people because of his own illness. You know, the one he tries to hide." Sasori waved it aside. "I'm giving it about a week. In any case, we can't move until Deidara's fever breaks."

"Well, then," Pein sighed. "Best of luck to you. Hidan's been getting cabin fever, which you can imagine is getting on a lot of people's nerves. The sooner Deidara gets back, the sooner Hidan stops being a nuisance."

Sasori rolled his eyes, though it was a little hard to tell. "I get it. Take care of Deidara and try to come home soon. I'm not going to sabotage his health."

Pein nearly smirked, but his face remained impassive. "I was just making sure."

o.o.o.o.o

"Ngh…" Deidara shivered and pulled the 'covers' tighter around him. "Danna, I'm _cold_, un."

"I get it." Sasori grunted, poking at the fire he'd made. He didn't show it, but he was a little worried. The night was cold and he couldn't exactly wrap more blankets around Deidara at this point. Building a larger fire would draw attention to them, and even if there had been someone around that was stupid enough to suggest sharing body heat, they would have first been impaled by Hiruko's tail, and then, while they were slowly, slowly dying, Sasori would have explained that sharing body heat would be impossible since he was a puppet and would thus probably just make Deidara colder.

"Danna?"

Sasori didn't sigh, but he did feel exasperated. "What?"

"You said Hiruko was well-insulated, right, un?"

Sasori froze. Oh no.

Now, a little explanation is needed here. You see, dear readers, when Sasori first made Hiruko, he was still human, and still living in the desert. In the desert, the temperature is extremely volatile, making people prone both to the heat during the day and to the freezing cold during the night. Since Hiruko was made for the puppeteer to sit inside, ventilation was absolutely necessary. Sasori had made seals that would prevent poison gas from getting in, though he didn't need those anymore, and seals that could help him control the temperature during both travel and battle. There was no use in getting overheated, and even sweat was distracting during a major fight. There was also no point in freezing during the night when he could just curl up in what amounted to a heated bunk, with only a little chakra spent to activate the seals.

So as much as Sasori hated to admit it, Hiruko was probably the best place for Deidara right now.

"Yes. Fine, you can sleep there, but I'm not letting you sleep in her alone."

"Hiruko's a girl? So I can call her Hiruko-chan, un?"

Sasori used a few chakra strings to levitate Deidara over to Hiruko's open back. "No."

"Hm." Deidara curled up in on himself as Sasori sat down next to him and pulled down Hiruko's cover and activating the heating seals. Oh well, at least he wouldn't have to feel the heat if he didn't want to.

"Thanks, Danna."

Sasori looked at the blond that was huddled on his side on the floor, makeshift blankets tight around his slim body. He sighed and pulled Deidara's head, still sleeping, onto his lap to keep an eye on him.

"You're welcome, Brat. You'd better be grateful."

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara woke up, a little confused. Okay, so he was on someone's lap. The lap was obviously too small to be Hidan's, and it didn't smell like Konan. In fact, it kind of smelled like wood polish.

So it was either Sasori or some sort of village woodworker.

He was betting on Sasori.

"Danna, un?" He shifted a little, finally blinking open his eyes. It didn't really help much.

"Yes, Brat." The exasperated voice was definitely Sasori.

"Where am I?" First thing's first, after all.

"Inside Hiruko."

Deidara frowned for a second. "You're not gonna chase me with a chainsaw again, are you, un?"

"No, Brat. You're in here because it's warmer than outside." Simple, and to the point.

Deidara stayed silent for a few minutes and slowly remembered what had happened the night before.

"Oh, yeah." Then he smiled and snuggled closer to Sasori, who just threw his gaze heaven-wards. "You're being really nice, Danna, un."

"That's because you have a very bad flu that's preventing us from completing the mission."

"Just let me hug you, un."

o.o.o.o.o

"I'M BA~CK!" Deidara called, bouncing into the base in the sweetest, bloodiest Lolita outfit she had. Ain't Guro fun? "And my flu's gone, too!"

"Great." The voice came from behind her, and she spun around to find herself being tossed over a bare shoulder.

"Hidan!" She squealed, kicking her boot-clad legs. "Put me down!"

"Hm…" Hidan pretended to think about it, and then grinned. "No."

A slap was heard through the base.

Silence…

"Did you just smack my a**?" Deidara blinked in surprise, and then grinned and reached down…

"[BLEEP]!" (No, I'm serious, this really had to be censored. More so than the rest.) Hidan yelped as Deidara pinched his backside.

Deidara's laughter echoed far and wide that day. So did the sound of several palms hitting foreheads.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara hung upside from the ceiling right behind the entrance to Itachi and Kisame's room. She lay—well, she _hung_, really—in wait, ready to pounce.

The door opened, and she _sprung!_

Well, actually she just stood a little to get to the right height.

Oh, and she licked Itachi's forehead.

Itachi blinked. Once. Twice. And then he stopped blinking.

Deidara tilted her head to the side and dropped to the ground. She poked Itachi, but it did little to nothing.

"Er, Itachi~kun? Are you okay~?" She poked him again, but he was still unresponsive. She started 'panicking.'

"C***! I broke Itachi!"

o.o.o.o.o

Konan looked at the blonde… girl? It didn't really matter… before her in slight disapproval. But with a look on her face like that, it was hard to stay angry at Deidara for long. She was a little too cute for that, even though she should be too old for that by know.

Konan sighed and unfolded her arms. She reached out and tapped Deidara's shoulder, making the girl look up with teary eyes.

"Even though we all know they're not genuine, those puppy-dog eyes of yours are far too powerful."

Deidara looked up and smiled. She glomped Konan, hugging her tightly around the waist. "So I'm off the hook?"

Konan patted Deidara's head absentmindedly. "Yes, yes, you're fine. None of us think there was really any way for you to know that your actions would have the consequences they did."

She pushed Deidara away and sat her on the bed, smile actually on her face. "But your 'punishment' is to be my dress-up doll for the day."

Deidara blinked and shrugged. "Okay!"

o.o.o.o.o

"Konan-nee-san, was this just your idea of a way to get a girls' night out? Or, you know, in?"

"You're calling me Nee-san now?" Konan asked, bemused. "And I suppose you could call it that. Even if you're really male, you're close enough to a girl that it doesn't matter."

"I'll just call you Nee-san for tonight, and then go right back to Konan-san." Deidara nodded her head decisively.

"Hold still." Konan admonished, shifting a little on her bed to sit a few inches to the left of where she had been. "If you really want cornrows like you claimed, stay still long enough for me to braid it all."

"Okay…" Deidara pouted and kicked her legs back and forth a few times. She was sitting on the edge of Konan's bed, which had dark blue covers and was really quite simplistic.

"Hey Konan? How close are you and Leader-sama?"

Konan rolled her eyes. This was a question that had been asked by a number of Akatsuki members over the years, though they were usually more indirect and subtle about it.

"I mean, not the one we know, 'cause that's a corpse, but—"

Deidara suddenly found herself on the floor with a kunai to her throat.

"How do you know that?" Konan demanded, face once more blank of emotion.

"What about my cornrows?" Deidara complained, and then yelped as Konan tilted the kunai to draw a little blood. "Ow! Konan-nee-san!"

"How do you know?" Konan asked again, eyes half-lidded and voice monotone. C***.

"Jashin told Hidan, and Hidan told me. Neither of us have told anyone else." Deidara rattled off. "Can we get back to the hair now?"

"No. What else do you know?" Konan moved the kunai away. She wasn't necessarily buying the Jashin explanation, but she'd put that aside for now.

"The Pein that we know is your dead best friend Yahiko."

Konan's hold on the kunai handle tightened.

"The real Pein is your other best friend Nagato. He's crippled and malnourished, and you two would probably be a couple if it wasn't for that."

Konan mentally scoffed, and then locked up the part of her brain that had made such a noise far away until she was done being a professional.

"You two are actually trying to make a big weapon to bring peace to the world instead of taking it over. Hidan and I don't really care so long as the Bijuu are brought together for… various reasons that I'm not allowed to talk about."

Konan continued to stare.

"Oh! I also know that you're working with a dead guy!" Deidara knew that wasn't exactly it, but it was enough. Hidan had refused to elaborate for some reason, anyway.

Konan's eyes narrowed in further suspicion.

"And… the last thing I know that's got something to do with this conversation is that if someone walked in right now, they'd probably think we were doing something S&M-y."

Konan blinked.

"Can I get up now?" Deidara was still lying on her stomach on the floor with Konan's kunai to her neck.

Konan sighed and got up, moving back to sit on the bed again.

"What are you going to do if you have this information?" She asked the younger 'kunoichi.'

Deidara shrugged, still sitting on the floor, now in a haphazard pretzel style. "Nothing. I never really cared about the organization in the first place, and Hidan's going along because fixing the Juubi might fix some technical problems that the dimension's been dealing with for a couple centuries."

Konan stared at the girl again and then dropped her head into her palm. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to elaborate?"

"Nope! So… what about you and Pein?" She got up on the bed and sidled up closer to Konan, leaning her head and smirking in the way known to teenaged girls hunting for gossip everywhere.

Konan frowned, pushing her away slowly. "Nothing. He's too sick and I still feel guilty about Yahiko."

"Too sick for sex?" Deidara questioned, tilting her head to the side in a manner _far_ too sweet, cute and undeniably _innocent_ considering the question.

"Deidara!" Konan hissed, arm moving at lightning speed to smack the younger girl upside the head. The small, petty satisfaction was wholly ignored.

"Konan!" Then Deidara frowned. "Never mind, we don't have enough people for a Round Robin Roll Call." She folded her arms across her chest, pouting. Then she turned back to Konan, done with her little act. "So?"

Konan relented, knowing just how Deidara would act if she tried to divert the conversation again. "Yes."

Deidara scrutinized her expression for a few seconds, and then a sad smile graced her lips. "You're one of the girls that decided to put off having kids until her career was set up, and now it's too late. Am I right?"

Konan froze, and then her head whipped around to glare at Deidara. "How do you know that?"

"I blame the fourth wall!" Deidara yelped and pointed to the ceiling.

Coincidentally, this also means that she is, currently, pointing at you, dear readers.

Konan looked up, and saw nothing. She looked back down at Deidara.

"I'll just tell myself that you took a lucky guess and ignore the signs of schizophrenia." Konan said slowly.

Deidara pouted again, but then stopped as she stepped closer again. "So… was I right?"

Konan sighed. "Yes. I never really gave kids much thought until I turned thirty. Before you say anything, I know that twenty-five is supposed to be age that women start worrying about that, but I've had a village to help run. Things only settled down a few years ago, and Nagato was already messed up by then."

"So you put the village first, and your heart second." Deidara summed up. She put a hand on Konan's shoulder. "I know that usually works out better for most girls, but I'm sure you'll find a way eventually, despite the bad luck. After all…"

She leaned in, and uneasiness hit Konan as she noticed the look on Deidara's face. "Your crazy little boyfriend is as close to being a god as a human can get."

o.o.o.o.o

Nagato blinked as Konan barged into the room and came straight up to him.

"Two things." She said before he could even open his mouth to say anything. He simply stared at her through sunken eyes.

"One: I want Zetsu to do an analysis on Deidara as soon as possible. I think she's showing signs of schizophrenia."

"I'll talk to him about it. What was the other thing?"

She came up and pulled him into a kiss. His eyes widened as she pulled back.

"Start eating more. I don't want to be kissing a husk."

She stalked out, hoping she hadn't just messed things up irreparably.

Nagato stared after her, throat suspiciously drier than usual.

o.o.o.o.o

"Dei?" Hidan looked outside his door, only to see Deidara in male mode. With cornrows.

Okay, not too unusual. Considering Deidara's normal clothing habits, cornrows were nothing unusual. The dress shirt and dress pants, however…

"What are you doing?"

Deidara looked away from the mirror where he was fixing up his tie. "Oh, hey Hidan, un. Uh… oh, right, you asked me what I was doing. Er… you know that village that's about fifteen miles northeast of here, un?"

Hidan raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Why wouldn't I? It's where we all go to get groceries and stuff."

Deidara waved that away. "Well, last time I went there I struck up conversation with this chick named Yumiko, and I'm taking her on a date tonight, un."

He turned around and spread his hands a little. "How do I look?"

Hidan rolled his eyes. "Fine. Just tell me you're not doing something ridiculous like putting on cologne."

Deidara clapped him on the back, chuckling. "Nah, don't have any, un. Wish me luck?"

"Break a leg. Literally."

"You're such an a**, un."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: An omake promised to ****Autumn-is-beautiful**** for being the fiftieth reviewer! It's not too good, but hey, it's an omake.**

o.o.o.o.o

OMAKE PROMPT: To have a new member or someone else come in and have a look at the rules. This is not necessarily part of this story's canon.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori walked along, sighing. He wasn't sure _why_ he'd had to bring the informant along with him—in fact, his memory of Pein's orders on the subject were a little fuzzy, which reminded him of one of Orochimaru's experiments on memory manipulation, and thus made him pretty suspicious—but he'd brought the man anyways. Of course, as soon as he had his information, Sasori would kill the man to prevent information leaks. Why couldn't they have done this at an inn or something?

This man shall not be given a name, since he's pretty much just there, shaking in his boots, and will be gone in less than a thousand words anyway. Ergo, he shall just be known by his position: the informant. It's not like any of you care about non-canon characters anyway, right?

Sasori and his informant walked into a bar…

Wait, no, this isn't a joke, it's an omake.

Sasori and his informant walked into the living room, the informant tied up, blindfolded, and being carried by Hiruko's tail.

Deidara stared from his spot on the couch for a few minutes. "So… BDSM?"

He dodged a kunai that came flying towards him. "Geez, Danna, just kidding. Relax."

The informant was dropped onto the floor, a small pamphlet dropped next to him. The blindfold and handcuffs were gone in a second.

"Read that, and then you'll stay in the spare room until Itachi gets back so he can take a look through your memories to see if there's anything you may have missed." Sasori said in a monotone drone—oh my, that's quite fun to write—and stalked off.

"Danna! You didn't take the rope off, un!" Deidara yelled.

"You do it." Sasori's less-than-excited voice drifted back.

Deidara looked at the informant and then shrugged. "Meh. Maybe later, un. I feel too lazy right now."

He went back to watching TV. The informant looked down and saw the pamphlet-thing on the ground. He picked it up and began to read. About halfway through, Deidara stood up and left the room as his watch beeped, but the informant dismissed this after realizing that the blond wasn't getting up to untie him.

So when he finally finished reading the rule book—for that is what it was, dear readers—he looked up again to see that Deidara had come back in and was sitting on the couch.

Oh, and she was in girl mode again.

"Ano…" the informant glanced down at the pamphlet in his hands and then back at Deidara, who was watching him in amusement. "Would… _that_," He indicated her outfit, "mean that you're Deidara?" The informant pointed to the rule book as if trying to explain where he'd gotten such an idea.

Deidara smirked. "Absolutely. Wanna go get a drink?"

"Er… no." The informant shrunk in on himself a little. What? He was talking to an S-Rank criminal, here!

"Mm… too bad. Tell me," Deidara suddenly leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, a languorous smirk on her face. "What's your opinion of art?"

"It says not to talk about it." The informant pointed to the book, cringing a little.

Deidara's smirk grew, causing the informant to grow even more uncomfortable.

"Oh, we are going to have fun with you…" Deidara chuckled, eyes narrowing even further.

When Itachi arrived, he had to dig through a week's worth of Deidara-inflicted traumatic memories to find what he was looking for. The smirks on Deidara's and Hidan's faces did nothing to convince anyone of their guilt, and Sasori looked ready to kill the poor man just so that his partner would no longer have her newest toy.


	7. Why Hidan Is The Last Jashinist

**A/N: Alright, people. I (finally) got the rest of the story outlined, and I realized that I have some forty or fifty chapters planned. Probably more if I include the necessary filler, which is unfortunately, as I said, necessary. But it's cracky filler, so we're good.**

**I'm a little surprised at myself, really. I haven't really bothered to outline any of my stories before, and finding that I have this many left to write if I go with how I'm planning this… it's a little daunting.**

**BUT I SHALL PREVAIL!**

**Oh, and I also found out the difference between blonde and blond. If it has an 'e,' it's feminine, if it doesn't, it's masculine. It's one of the few borrowed nouns (from French, in this case) that have retained their gender… assignments? Point is, I may have a little trouble with it, but it counts as food for thought.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_People are so unbearably incompetent."_

_-Yet another guy in my History class, while we were talking about The Communist Manifesto (again)_

o.o.o.o.o

And now, we jump into the middle of a conversation.

"I haven't, un?" Deidara tilted his head to the side a little.

"Nope." Hidan popped the 'p' at the end.

"Huh." Deidara looked down at the clay in his hands, realized what he'd been making, reddened considerably, and squashed it. No, you don't get to know. "So… I should probably get on that, un."

Hidan shrugged from his position on Deidara's bed. "Meh. I don't really care if you make the difference between your male and female halves all that big, but if you're still trying to murder Itachi's sanity…"

"Yes." Deidara grinned, the clay in his hands slowly taking the form of a zombie Santa. "I must take a sledgehammer to – OW!"

"What do we do about bad metaphors that showcase our instability?" Hidan asked. He ignored the glare that Deidara shot him for smacking the back of his head.

"Don't make them, un." Deidara sighed, rubbing the goose-egg that would surely form. "Why do I gotta listen to you?"

"I'm older than you and have a god on my side." Hidan folded his arms and smirked.

"Tch. A**hole."

o.o.o.o.o

"Hey, Konan?" Deidara's smile was the kind that you gave to someone who you were very interested in sucking up to. "Do you have any spare conditioner, un? Like, maybe Tea Country Lavender & Chai ™ conditioner, un?"

Konan's hand, which had been speeding over the papers on her desk, slowed down considerably, and then stopped. She laid the pen down on the table, and looked up.

"Deidara."

The blond winced at her tone. "Yeah?"

"You _are_ aware of just how expensive Tea Country hair products are, right?"

"Yes…"

"And you are aware of how much grief Kakuzu gives me for even buying them?"

"Yes, un…"

"Why are you asking me, then?"

"I have a date, un." Deidara muttered, looking away obstinately.

There was silence for a few seconds, and then he looked up to see Konan standing in front of him

"With a boy or a girl?"

"W-with a girl, un." Deidara answered, surprised at how close she was.

"And you're going as?"

"A guy, un." Deidara said, taking a small step backwards. The h***?

"Hm…" Konan put a hand to her chin. "You might be better off with a different conditioner, then."

"Wait, you're helping me on this, un?" Deidara stared at her.

"It's my prerogative as a woman. Quite frankly, you're the only one that I get to take this out on. Itachi doesn't seem to have an interest in anyone, no matter their sex, and I've only ever seen Hidan have one-night stands." She sniffed.

"Maybe they do date, and just don't tell you, un?" Deidara suggested. "I'm not sure, but they might. I never really asked, un."

"I don't care. You're letting me help you on this. What's her name?"

"Yumiko."

"That's a nice name. Is she pretty?" Konan had, by this point, dragged Deidara all the way to his and Sasori's room.

"Er, yeah."

"Specifics, Deidara." Konan walked over to Deidara's open closet and started flipping through his clothes.

You know who's watching this? Sasori. He doesn't care. He's learned to avoid anything Deidara's involved in that doesn't have anything to do with a mission.

"Light blue hair, brown eyes. She's one of the few girls my age I've met that's shorter than me, but she does have fairly nice curves, un." Deidara, if you were wondering, was still only five-foot one, despite being seventeen. He wasn't particularly sensitive about it, but he was still the butt of Akatsuki's jokes sometimes.

"That's nice. Don't worry about your height; you're seventeen. You still have time to grow." Konan said, somewhat ignoring him.

"Er… right."

"By the way, where are you taking her?"

"There's this restaurant in Komochi that has some pretty nice sushi, un. I was thinking of taking her there."

"Ooh, that sounds nice."

And so the afternoon wore on.

o.o.o.o.o

Later that night, Sasori heard the door to the artists' shared room open and close as Deidara came back in.

"You're late, brat."

"Didn't think I had a bedtime, Danna, un. Or a curfew…"

He collapsed on the bed, yawning.

"See you in the mornin', un."

Sasori rolled his eyes.

o.o.o.o.o

"You're really the last Jashinist left?" Deidara asked, looking at Hidan. Once again, Deidara was lying on his back on Hidan's bed, this time tossing a tennis ball up and down.

"What the h***? I told you this already."

"Well, I don't remember then. I'm pretty sure you didn't, but for now, let's just call it a blond moment."

"You don't _have_ blond moments."

"Whatever, just explain why you're the last one left."

"A'right, geez. Okay, first of all, before you ask about immortality and Jashinism, because I know you probably will, I'm the only one it's ever worked for."

There was silence for two very heavy seconds.

"The h***?"

"Let me put it simply: it takes a s***ton of pain to get the immortality to work. There are dozens of seals that are necessary to write in the subjects own blood, and then there's the activation itself, which is pretty much a week's worth of feeling like there's a hot knife for every square centimeter of skin."

Deidara stared. "Heh?"

"Most people die from the pain. A couple survived but had the immortality removed by Jashin himself because they'd gone completely insane and he pitied them enough to let them die."

"So… you're immortal because you have a high pain tolerance?"

Hidan shrugged, "That, and I was already pretty unstable and more than a little masochistic before the ritual."

"Unstable?" Deidara tilted his head a little, a motion that seemed rather odd since he wasn't in girl mode.

"I was pretty much killing everyone I came across for the h*** of it."

Deidara blinked a little. "But… you mean you're not like that now?"

"You know me better than that." Hidan pouted. It looked funny. "I like a little good violence now and again, but I'm not a complete psychopath, not anymore. I've got no trouble killing, but I actually feel _guilt_ sometimes, and I have lines I'm not gonna cross anymore."

"What happened, then?" Deidara asked.

Hidan pulled his rosary up off his chest and pointed at it with his other hand. "I told you, I can talk to Jashin. He sort of… coached me out of it. Fixed up some chemical imbalance or something in my brain."

"How…?"

"Immortality leads to a healing factor. Healing factor leads to fixing things that are wrong with me physically, even if it's been that way for a long time. Chemical imbalances are included in that.

"Anyway, that's why there aren't any other immortal priests running around like me."

"Great. What about the temples and everything?"

"The last of them was destroyed by Kumo-nin about three and a half years ago."

Deidara stared.

And stared.

And stared.

"Are you serious?"

"Yes. All the temples were destroyed. All the priests were killed. Because of the immortality ritual, I can still sacrifice people, but I'm the only one that can without access to a temple, because the temples had the seals that sent the souls to the demon realm."

Deidara thought this over for a second. "You're pretty much the lynchpin to the survival of the dimension then?"

"Yes. Where are you going with this?"

"We're all f***ed."

"I hate you."

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara!" Konan admonished. "You said you've been together for two months, right?"

"Yes, Konan, un."

"Your two-month anniversary is coming up, right?"

"Well, yeah, but that's not really—"

"If you say that it's not important, I'll mummify you."

"Okay, un." His voice was very meek.

Konan was a force to be reckoned with.


	8. Psychology is Not My Strong Point

**A/N: There's a Tropes link for the page with this story on my bio, and a link to my DA account, which does have some fanart on it. Only a few pictures so far, but still, check it out if you haven't already. I'm still holding out for that TvTropes rec.**

**IN CONCERNS TO THE BRAIN CHEMISTRY: I've taken some liberties with this. What I've written is mostly influenced by the monoamine and dopamine hypotheses, but neither of those has shown conclusive results, though findings indicate that they are quite probable. As this is fanfiction, and the Naruto-verse may very well have different rules for such a thing (considering the fact that Sasori manages to be insane without technically even having a **_**brain**_**? Yeah, I thought so…). In any case, take it all with a grain of salt. I did do some research, and I'm in a psychology class right now, but I am **_**far**_** from being an expert on anything. If nothing else, just assume Willing Suspension of Disbelief until what they're saying is over.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_If you're doing marijuana alone in your own house, you're probably not going to be arrested by the federal government."_

_-I'm kind of ashamed to say that this was yet another guy from my history class. I write a lot of this story in my history class, for some reason. We were talking about Nazis and Hitler this time._

o.o.o.o.o

"_K-Konan!" Deidara choked out, taking a step back. "Really, you don't need to do this, un!"_

_Konan simply stepped forward, scissors still in hand. "Those split ends have gotten to be too much of a hassle. You really do need a trim."_

_The scissors were the size of Deidara's head. He whimpered, backing up against a wall._

"_Maybe we should cut a few other things off, too?" The scissors click-clacked menacingly, snip-snip. A disturbing grin grew across Konan's face, showing far too many teeth. Lines appeared in her face, all the way back to her ears._

_Then a green elephant came into the room, and Hidan was on its back, screaming nonsense._

"_Kakuzu's started a f***ing zoo, seriously!"_

_The h***?_

Deidara woke up in a flash, still curled up on his side, shivering a little. He sat up slowly, shaking his head.

"Brat?" Sasori's uncaring voice drifted back. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing, danna. Just a nightmare, un."

"About?" Sasori turned away from his desk, arms folded across his chest.

"Konan was trying to cut my hair." Deidara mumbled, realizing how stupid the whole thing must sound. Well, there was more…

"Really? You woke up from a nightmare about _getting a haircut_?" The disbelief in his tone was obvious.

"Well, Hidan rode in on a big green elephant, ranting something about Kakuzu starting a zoo, and… and then I woke up." Deidara added, staring at the ceiling. Now that he thought about it, being so affected by the situation was a little stupid.

"The sad thing," Sasori started, "Is that it doesn't really seem all that different from what you and Hidan do on a near-daily basis."

"Danna…" Deidara whined, finally getting fully out of bed, let his legs hang over the side. "That's mean."

"You lost a bundle of yeti fur to a giant cricket on a carnival ride." Sasori deadpanned. "Face it, you're a magnet for strange things."

"A weirdness magnet." Deidara mused, and then set to his morning stretches. He grinned when he saw Sasori grimace at the pops and crackles.

"That's disgusting." The puppet master deadpanned.

"Better than the clicking that you've got going on whenever you so much as blink."

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara flounced along the hall later that day, once again in a dress. She stopped when she suddenly found herself staring into a pair of flat black eyes.

She grinned and flung her arms out to hug Itachi. He sidestepped the hug.

"Mou… so mean, 'Tachi-kun." She pouted up at him from the floor.

"Leader-sama wishes to speak with you." He turned and walked away.

"Aw, no hug? How 'bout a kiss?" She smirked up at him.

"You have a girlfriend. If you want a kiss, go to her." He turned and left.

"I'll see you later, Itachi-kun!" She called after him, giggling. Deidara turned down the hall, facing in the direction of Pein's room. She took a deep breath.

"LEADER-SAMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~~~!"

o.o.o.o.o

Pein looked at her like a hawk watches a squirrel. A fidgety, suicidal squirrel with a mad grin and an explosive tag on its back.

(Somewhere in Konoha, Rock Lee sneezed, wondering why he was suddenly thinking about the squirrel he'd saved during the Chunin exams.)

"So…" Deidara glanced around. "Why am I here, again?"

"Zetsu has a degree in psychology, and can practice in both psychology and psychiatry safely, even when it isn't quite legal. For various reasons, I want you to talk to him for a little, because Konan and I think your mental state's been going haywire recently. We might end up having biannual checkups for everyone if it looks worthwhile."

Deidara stared for a few seconds. "So… I'm your guinea pig?"

Pein didn't answer.

"I'm the guinea pig, aren't I?"

o.o.o.o.o

Zetsu stared at Deidara, who was sitting across from him.

On the ceiling.

With a book that he suspected had been borrowed from Hidan, if the bright orange cover was any hint.

Of course, Deidara was reading it with an expression that suggested a tome on ancient sealing techniques or the history of Suna or some other suitably boring topic, rather than what it probably was.

How could he read smut like that without giving off even the slightest indicator of what kind of _porn_ (and it was that) he'd bought there?

"Deidara, can you get down from the ceiling?" Zetsu called out.

"Why?" Deidara pouted down at them.

"**Because you're wasting our time and we're not being paid s*** for this.**" Zetsu's black half replied.

"Hm… okay!" She dropped down to the floor. "Good morning class, I'll be your guinea pig for today. Please don't eat my bra~ins!"

"**You're an idiot. I shouldn't have to do this.** Relax, you know what Deidara's like. Just enjoy the stupid entertainment for what it is." Zetsu chastised himself, sitting down in moderately comfortable chair.

Deidara just sat on the floor, cross-legged.

"Alright, Deidara, why did Pein send you here?" Zetsu asked, ready to even start taking notes. He wasn't particularly fond of doing this; he had enough mental issues of his own, and having to do analyses on anyone else was just plain annoying.

"He says I'm schizophrenic, since I can hear the Fourth Wall." Deidara nodded, and then tilted her head to the side. "Oh, and the pyromania, I guess."

Zetsu held back a sigh. This was stuff that he already knew. "Okay… **What the h*** is the fourth wall?**"

Deidara put a finger to her lips. "Hidan told me, and he said not to let anyone know unless it was _really_ necessary. So you have to keep quiet, okay?"

"Sure." Zetsu agreed easily. "Patient confidentiality and all that. I may have to tell Leader a few things, but that's only if there's actually something detrimental going on."

"Okay, so we're all characters in a story, and the fourth wall is what separates us from the readers. And Hidan knows because Jashin told him. After Hidan told me, _I_ started hearing the in-between stuff, the prose, too. Not the dialogue, though." She pouted.

Zetsu stared for a few seconds, and then jotted something down: _Delusional. Believes that the world is fictional. Learned from Hidan._

"Alright, anything else?"

"Nope. No other voices." She smiled and held a hand to her mouth, whispering. "But Hidan said that he sometimes talks to Jashin."

Zetsu's face was the picture of unimpressed. "**How nice for him**. I think we can both agree that you are firmly stuck in the realm of pyromania."

"Yup!" She clapped her hands, smiling cheekily.

Zetsu thought back to a few things, knowing that talking about the pyromania would be a dead-end. Besides, Deidara would probably be a _worse_ fighter without that particular mental issue. One thing did make him wonder…

"**Why do you hate Itachi?**" He asked, and then clarified as he saw just what kind of expression was coming up on the blonde's face. "Deidara, can I have a real answer? **Not the femme 'I'm a fangirl' bulls***.**"

Deidara was silent for a few seconds, and then finally spoke, voice still feminine, though back in his male speech patterns. "I… I don't hate him as much as I used to, un."

"Well, can you at least tell us why you used to hate him? **Yeah, you usually just blame it all on his Sharingan.**" Zetsu prodded the question again. "You can tell us why you stopped hating him as much as you used to as well, if you'd like."

Deidara fidgeted a little. "I'll tell you why I don't hate him anymore first. It'll take less time, un."

She looked down at her hands. "In this mode, I have to pretend to like him. It'd be easier if I could convince myself that I _do_ like him, but I need to give myself reasons for that, un. I can't actually convince myself, of course, but there's still the fact that I need to come up with _something_ about him to _pretend_ to like, right, un? So I had to find things about him that I _could_ like, so I started looking at his good qualities so that I could try to ignore the bad ones, un, and… Well, if you spend _that_ much time looking at how 'good' of a person someone is, you kind of just start realizing that he's not really all that bad, if you've been trying long enough, un."

Deidara had started rushing after the first few words, taking only a breath or two after them. At the end, she just looked up at Zetsu, cheeks furiously red. She seemed a little angry and disappointed in herself.

"You sure that's all?" Zetsu asked, a little bemused.

"I _want_ to hate him!" Deidara moaned shoving her face into his hands. "Now I just really dislike him! I don't even find myself fantasizing about his death like I used to, un! I've been spending so much time developing C4 just to kill him, un, and, and _now_…" She broke down in frustration.

"**If you weren't an S-rank nukenin, the 'fantasizing about his death' line probably would have meant I'd be writing you some prescriptions out right about now**." Zetsu said snidely. "In any case, the fact that you've stopped hating him is better for everyone, and considering what you've explained, it's perfectly natural that you don't really hate him anymore. Now, **could you tell us why the h*** you hated him in the first place?**"

Deidara frowned, looking away. "His Sharingan."

"You've said that before. **Come on, we don't have all day and Pein wanted us to get you analyzed, even if doing it in just a day is sort of impossible."**

Deidara turned, fixing him with her one visible eye. They stayed like that for a few moments, and then suddenly the whole story of Deidara and Itachi's first meeting was spilling out. The bet, the fight, Deidara's disturbing revelation, Zetsu heard all of it.

Silence.

"Well, you really are pretty messed up, aren't you?** How were you planning on killing him, anyway, if nothing you did actually worked the first time?"**

"C4. It disintegrates pretty much everything in a certain radius, while I fly too high for it to reach me." Deidara moped. "I haven't perfected it yet, though."

"And if that hadn't worked? If Itachi just brushed it off and ignored it? **If he didn't even care about your art?**"

"C0." Deidara said, eyes burning. "No one insults my art like that if they have those cursed eyes."

"**What happens with that?**" Zetsu asked.

"I have a mouth in my chest. I eat a lot of clay with it, and detonate myself, un. I become my own greatest masterpiece." Deidara's eyes shone, though her hands were still twisted angrily in her dress.

Zetsu stared. "A suicide technique? Just because someone ignored your art?"

"He's an Uchiha, un." Deidara reasoned, her arms now folded.

"Deidara, are you suicidal?" Screw proper procedure. If he felt like asking outright, he'd ask outright. It wasn't like Deidara could get any more messed up anyways.

Deidara frowned, and then looked at the floor. There was silence for a few more seconds, and then she finally spoke again, a little subdued. "Can I have some time to think about that?"

She actually had to think about it, which meant that she was depressed or had really weird values, at the _least_. This had to be fixed.

"**We're taking a blood sample and asking Sasori to examine it.** I can't peg you for depression unless it's really well hidden, but uneven dopamine or monoamine levels in the brain can lead to suicidal thoughts, depression, schizophrenia, and a few other things. **You've shown a s***-ton of some of the symptoms, so we'll have it done to check for that.**" Zetsu said, standing up and turning to leave.

"Wait, what?" Deidara blinked.

o.o.o.o.o

Pein looked at the results presented to him by Zetsu and Sasori. "You're telling me that Deidara is not only a pyromaniac like we thought, but thinks the world isn't real, is suicidal, and has some sort of chemical imbalance in his head?"

"Yes, sir."

Pein pinched the bridge of his nose. "Get him some medication or something. And I think it would be better if we really _did_ do this for all of them. If everyone's hiding something like this…"

"Yes, sir." There was a note of irritation in their voices, but they acquiesced nonetheless. If Pein said you had to do more work, guess what? You got to do more work. Whoop-de-doo.

They didn't even get _overtime_.

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan looked at the blonde 'girl' on his bed, trying hard not to smirk.

Oh, who am I kidding? Hidan doesn't care if he smirks or not.

Deidara was staring at the bottle of pills in her hands. "So… I hope Danna reminds me to take these, 'cause I probably won't remember."

Hidan barked out a laugh. "Ha! Maybe now you can just tell people that you forgot your meds, and you're killing them because of that."

Deidara giggled a little. "Oh yeah, I can totally see that happening." She put on an affected voice, squeaking for the victims and use her/his own deep voice for her/his own lines. "They'd be all, 'Why, why are you doing this, you sexy beast? Are you insane?' and I'd be all, 'No s***, Sherlock. It's just your bad luck that I forgot my meds today, un.' And then I'd blow them up and…" She drifted off with a smile on her face, still giggling once in a while as a new idea of an explosion wormed its way into her head.

"Oi. Earth to Dei." Hidan snapped his fingers in front of her face. She blinked and looked up at him.

"Huh?"

"Done daydreaming yet?" Hidan stepped back, his arms crossed.

"Oh… yeah. So… I've actually got meds now. _Meds_." She stared at the bottle. "I mean, they're not even for the pyromania. _Meds_, dude."

"Yeah, I know. You've told me a dozen times, seriously." Hidan got up. "You gonna tell that girl of yours?"

Deidara blinked, tilting her head to the side. "You mean Yumiko? I guess. I mean, she already knows about the whole constant-crossdressing thing, finds it kinda funny, actually, and I was kinda planning on telling her about the whole S-class criminal thing soon anyways, so I could use this as a lead-in…"

"Great. Now get off my bed, I'm tired and want to sleep. And yes, I'm sleeping on my own bed." He started moving towards said bed, only stopping when the blonde had flipped over to her stomach and given him a _look_.

"Who says that means I have to get off?" The grin was… well, it was teasing. It was clear that Deidara most definitely did _not_ actually want to sleep with Hidan, in either sense of the word—well, maybe she wouldn't have minded the non-perverted kind that involved actual, non-exhausted sleep—but was just saying it all to irritate him to high heaven.

Hidan grabbed the covers and flipped Deidara off. "I do. Now leave, dips***."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Did I explain Deidara's waning hatred of Itachi properly? I mean, I think it makes sense, but if you feel otherwise, please comment on that. Once again, the rules of psychology are slightly twisted in-story for the sake of the plot.**

**In case you were wondering, I based some of Yumiko's looks of off Nefertari Vivi, from One Piece, albeit a fair bit shorter, as Vivi is rather tall.**

**This story now has a Tropes page. The link is on my profile. Go visit, and maybe add a little to the page. If you think this story is worth reading, please add it to the Alt Fic and Crack Fic section of the Naruto FanFic Recommendations pages. If you think I'm nagging you about this too much, flame me.**

**Goodbye,**

**Phoenix.**


	9. Coping with a Breakup

**A/N: About this chapter… please don't hate Yumiko. She's a sweet girl, just has some unfortunate circumstances…**

o.o.o.o.o

"_Every day is Hitler Day!"_

_- Guy in my History class. Again. Most of these quotes are coming from the same two guys._

"_Our class is like a bunch of in-laws."_

_- Same guy, same class. Completely true, unfortunately. Our grade's IB students are like a very dysfunctional family, ergo, in-laws._

o.o.o.o.o

The door closed quietly in the early morning hours, barely audible to anyone that didn't have enhanced puppet hearing.

Sasori spun around in his chair to see Deidara come in. He was in the same clothes he's been wearing when he'd left early in the evening the day before, though rumpled, and there was a certain scent hanging about him that made his activities from the previous night obvious. Well, it had been the six month anniversary of his relationship with his darling Yumiko.

"D*** it."

Then again, his expression… it wasn't quite distraught, but he was definitely unhappy. He sat on his bed, leaning forward and burrowing his face into his hands with his elbows resting on his knees.

"I'm taking it didn't go well?" Sasori asked with a rather sardonic tone.

"It's… complicated, Danna." Deidara admitted, lifting his head up. He clasped his hands together and rested his chin upon them.

"Did you break up? Or did she just dump you?"

Deidara actually flinched a little at that. "Sort of. I don't… I don't think either of us really blame each other, though. Maybe Yumiko blames herself a little. Probably. We were both holding back secrets."

Sasori raised an eyebrow. "Oh? What happened?"

Deidara threw himself back on his bed, arms flung wide and then tucked under his head a second later. "Well, she didn't react too badly to the stuff about the medication; she didn't react at all to that part, really. When I told her about being an S-rank nukenin, though, she was a bit…"

"You _told_ her?" Sasori stared at his partner. Of all the _stupid_…!

"Well, I figured that if either of us were planning on going on with the relationship, we shouldn't be hiding secrets like that."

"Still, that was remarkably short-sighted of you, especially as you apparently _aren't_ going on with your relationship."

"That's because of _her_ secrets!" Deidara shot back, but his anger died a second later. "She's… well, she's kind of a daimyo's niece."

There was silence for a second.

"_What._" Sasori was glaring. That was bad.

"She's not going to tell anyone about me being a nukenin, or Akatsuki's whereabouts, since we're obviously nearby since I visited so often. She made sure to tell me that. I mean, she was just a little quiet after I told her, especially since I told her the same reasons for telling her that I gave you." Deidara shifted uncomfortably where he was sitting. "After I freaked out a little about her knowing what she did in her position, and calmed down, she told me that she was being stuck in an arranged marriage in about a year."

More silence.

"Brat, what have you _done_? If you got her mad by breaking her heart or something ridiculous like that, I will kill you. We don't need some random country declaring war on us because—"

"Hey, I'm not the one that did the dumping." Deidara glared at the puppeteer. "Yumiko did that part. She said that the reason she started a relationship with me in the first place was because she wanted to have a chance at real love before her responsibilities took that chance away from her."

"And to lose her virginity?" Sasori snarked, a deadpan look on his face.

Deidara blushed, glancing away. "That too. And, er, mine as well."

*Chirping Crickets*

Sasori coughed, a little uncomfortable, though obviously not as much as his blond partner. "I'm surprised you didn't just go out and kill the people involved."

"I offered. She said not to bother. We actually argued about it for a while, but…" He glanced away again, not bothering to finish his sentence, the ending obvious. "I told her to at least make sure that I got a wedding invitation."

Sasori raised an eyebrow again. "And how do you expect to receive it? I know that you would have no trouble sneaking in, but where would she send it?"

"I told her to just c/o it through Pein." Deidara answered. "Figured that if she actually was going to be in a wedding with someone as high up as expected, routing it to the leader of a hidden village wouldn't be too odd."

Sasori sighed, having exhausted all the questions he needed to for professional reasons, and one or two that weren't quite as professional. "Have fun telling Konan. She's not going to be happy."

Deidara paled. "C***."

o.o.o.o.o

"What are you-?"

"Konan's trying to comfort me! I need to hide!" Deidara hissed from on top of the Jashinist's armoire.

Hidan stared. "I… what?"

"Yumiko and I broke up, and Konan found out. I mean, I'm not happy about it, but Konan is going a little overboard about it all."

A knock sounded on the door. Konan's voice came through. "Hidan, could you please be a dear and let me in?"

"F*** no!" Hidan yelled back, giving Deidara a dirty look that said something along the lines of '_You so owe me one_.'

"And why not?"

"I'm not wearing anything!" He shouted.

"You run around the base in a towel all the time! Since when do you feel any shame?"

"Towel, yes. Naked, no. Now go away."

"…are you playing with yourself? Is that why you won't open the door?"

"Playing with my…" Hidan's face colored as he realized what she was asking. "What the h*** kind of a question is that?"

"I'm leaving." Konan made a dismissive noise, and there was a rustle of cloth as she left, her footsteps lacking even the slightest of sounds.

Hidan looked over at Deidara, near glaring. "Well? What was this about you breaking up with that girl of yours?"

Deidara frowned, no longer in an amused mood. "Oh. That."

"Get down here and tell me."

o.o.o.o.o

"Danna, where are we going, un?" Deidara asked, wondering at what was going on; there had been a blindfold over his eyes for the past several minutes. It was cold, but humid. They were probably somewhere in Kaminari no Kuni, then.

"Here." The blindfold was gone, and Deidara found himself in a large, empty valley. It was misty, and there was a wind-beaten tree here and there, but otherwise there was nothing.

"Um… okay. Why are we here, un?"

Sasori pointed to the ridge that surrounded the area. "I'm going to go sit up there, out of the way. You are going to get out of that annoying depressive slump of yours and blow things up the way you normally do in your pathetic attempts to create art, misguided as they are."

Deidara blinked as that filtered through and stared at Sasori disbelievingly. "You're actually giving me free reign to blow up _anything_ here, un?"

"It's not like there's much to blow up." Sasori turned Hiruko around and started to head up to the walls of the valley. "Don't expect me to do this again."

"Thank you!" He got barreled over by a hug. Normally, he would have been able to avoid a hug, but that was because it was usually Deidara in female mode that hugged people, and he knew to be on his guard. That he was being hugged by a male Deidara was not what he wanted to feel. "Thank you, Danna, thank you, thank you, thank you!"

"Get off."

"Okay, but you're not going up there, 'cause you'll probably die, un."

"What? You actually think you could-?"

"I haven't perfected it yet, un." Deidara frowned at him, tugging on Hiruko's cloak. "Seriously, if I mess up, you could die. I have to practice this, and I stay out of range on one of my birds, un. Even if I don't mess up, you still might die because of how the technique works."

Sasori stared. Well, looked like Deidara was actually serious about this. "Fine, but if you're lying…"

"I'm not, un."

"I'm going to regret this." Sasori muttered as he sealed away Hiruko and jumped up onto Deidara's bird.

Five minutes later:

"That is absolutely disgusting." Sasori didn't feel nausea, so staring at Deidara swallowing clay with his head mouth and then vomiting it all back up at a volume hundreds of times what was normal wasn't as bad as it could have been. That didn't exactly make it good, though.

Deidara flipped him off, mouth still stuffed with clay.

The clay began to coalesce into a giant statue of Deidara. It stood in the center of the valley as the real Deidara got them out of the way on the bird.

"Okay, let's test the C4, un." Deidara put his hands together, a concentrated look in his eye. "Katsu!"

The clay exploded… and did nothing. There was little, if any, damage done to the surroundings.

"How impressive." Sasori's sarcasm was near palpable.

Deidara frowned, looking around. "S***. We're still too close. Come here, I need to defuse you, un."

Sasori stared at him. "What?"

"You may not feel like you breathe, but you do, to talk, un." Deidara laughed nervously as he ran a hand through his bang. "C4 works by exploding into hundreds of millions of microscopic bombs that are breathed in by the target and left to either disintegrate naturally, which takes a couple days since the half-life's only a few hours, or they explode when I tell them to, un. We didn't exactly get out of range, so I kind of have to defuse you like I did to me so that I don't blow you up by accident, un."

Sasori kept staring. There seemed to be a small war going on in his head. Finally, he sighed. "Fine. Defuse me."

Deidara nodded and came closer, putting a hand on Sasori's chest and focusing. Sasori felt the chakra entering his system and gathering something towards the center of his chest, and then a small flow of white powder came floating out of his mouth and into Deidara's palm. It was promptly pressed into the rest of the bird. Deidara repeated the process on himself, much more quickly.

"I don't know whether to strangle you for your recklessness or congratulate you for coming up with an attack that doesn't just rely on brute force." Sasori looked down at the ground. "What will happen when you detonate them?"

Deidara looked over the side, and then pointed at a small rabbit that he could only see with his scope and that he knew Sasori would be able to see with his enhanced puppet vision, and waved a hand at the tree. "Look at the things here that are alive, the things that breathe."

He put his hands together.

"Katsu."

The trees and rabbit fell to dust, and there was a bare whining noise in the air as they did. Sasori's eyes actually widened, if only a little.

"Brat…"

"Yeah?"

"It may not be eternal, but I think I'll acknowledge that as art."

Deidara's grin was near blinding. He punch an arm into the air. "H***S YEAH!"

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori read through the scroll while he and Deidara sat at yet another restaurant. He was ensconced in Hiruko, and Deidara was eating some dish with fried fish.

"So, I still haven't been able to find something that blasts well in Ame, but I think that if I get some sulfur from that volcano near Tea Country, I might be able to make something work." The girl was chatting in her normal way, about her normal subjects.

Annoying and about explosives.

"Brat, if you don't have anything worthwhile to talk about, then don't talk at all. Finish your food so we can go meet up with Zetsu in River Country."

"Yeah, yeah, ya ol' fart." Deidara grabbed another piece of fish in her chopsticks, glancing around for a second, and then stiffening. "Konoha Nin, three o'clock."

Sasori moved Hiruko the slightest bit, only the eyes, to look at them. A man around thirty, smoking. A boy wearing a kind of armor, with an odd headband and far more fat than most ninja; he was probably an Akimichi, then. A boy with a shock of hair up in a ponytail up high on his head. A girl that reminded him far too much of the one across the table from him for comfort. The first was at Jounin level, a Sarutobi that Kakuzu would literally kill to get his hands on the bounty. The rest looked to be at chunin level, no more. They'd recognized the two Akatsuki members.

D*** it.

"They've noticed us." Sasori muttered, looking back over at Deidara with one eye as the other watched the Konoha Nin.

"I know. The Jounin is probably going to send his students off for back up, and try to stall us until more people get here." Deidara smirked. "Let's just confuse them until that's no longer an option. It's almost three at the end of a cycle anyway, so we've got one thing going for us."

Sasori eyed her for a few seconds, and then nodded. "I'll trust your judgment for this one, brat. Don't mess it up."

Deidara stood up and plastered a carefree grin on her face. She shot an arm into the air and waved at Team Ten. "Yoohoo, Konoha Nin! I know you see us!"

They stared, and Sasori had to remind himself that Deidara did, after all, have a plan.

"C'mon over here! I promise we won't attack if you don't!" She motioned for them to come a bit closer.

They took a step away, sliding into discrete but battle-ready stances.

People were staring a little at this point.

Deidara huffed and crossed her arms. "Mou… they're not making this easy on us, are they? Hey, Danna? Could you make them come over with your puppet strings?"

"They might view that as an attack." Sasori reminded her. She'd probably already thought of that, but it didn't hurt to say.

"R-really?" She brought her fists up to her face, covering her mouth with them as her eyes began to tear.

Maybe it did hurt to say.

"Brat. Stop crying. I know you're just acting."

Deidara grinned and tossed herself down into her seat, barely keeping herself from kicking her feet up onto the table. "Yeah, I know you know."

Sasori resisted the urge to facepalm. He'd made it over a year with Deidara pulling this kind of c*** without ever slamming his head against something, whether his palm, a wall, or even a desk, and he would not lose this battle now.

"Oi! Come on over!" Deidara had a hand cupped to her mouth and was shouting over at the Konoha Nin again. Huh. Sasori had almost forgotten about them by now.

"Tch. A**holes." Deidara muttered, and hopped over the small fence surrounding the café. She strolled over to the foreign shinobi, who grabbed kunai and formed handsigns, ready to fight.

Deidara stopped a few meters from them, arms crossed. "You know, you guys suck at diplomacy. If someone asks you to sit down for lunch with them, you're not supposed to pick up weapons. You're supposed to sit down."

"You're an Akatsuki. Every time someone from our village has run into one of your organization's members, a fight has broken out." Asuma pointed out.

Deidara scoffed. "So break the tradition. The only member I can think of that would attack you on sight just for who you are would be Kakuzu, and that's 'cause he'd want your bounty."

"Oh, and we should just trust you?" The other blonde said with a little spite.

Deidara pouted for a few seconds. "Why not?" She whined and stomped her foot, hands balled into fists.

They weren't really sweat-dropping yet. Hm… a little more, then.

"Who could say no to a face like this?" She pouted a bit more, her visible eye growing large and watery. Her lip trembled, and she looked like she was about to start bawling.

She dropped to her knees, hands clasped in front of her. A small sniffle was tossed in. "Please?"

They sweatdropped. _Score!_

She stood and flipped her hair. "Bah! You're coming over whether you like it or not."

She turned, winking at Sasori. Her voice was flirtatious to the extreme. "Danna~! Do what I mentioned earlier!"

"I hate you." Sasori deadpanned, his voice barely carrying. A second later, Chouji was finding himself being almost tugged forward as the strings latched onto him. Ino was taken a second later, and Asuma and Shikamaru had no choice but to follow as their comrades were dragged away from him.

"Thank you, Danna~!" Deidara giggled and skipped back to the café, launching herself up and over the fence in a handstand, 'sticking the landing' as she dropped back into her seat. The Konoha nin were sitting down in the various other seats there a short while later. Deidara motioned for drinks.

"Mou… you know, you could have just come over on your own. I wasn't lying about not attacking." Deidara giggled. "Silly Konoha Nin. Just because we're enemies doesn't mean we can't be friends~!"

The singsong tone in her voice would have been nauseating, if it weren't for the fact that it was Deidara, an S-class nukenin.

"I'm surprised you haven't picked a fight with the Yamanaka yet." Sasori muttered as a waiter set down a few glasses of water.

"Yamanaka? Who…?"

"The girl. Her father's in the bingo book." Sasori was obviously a little exasperated.

"Oh… why would I pick a fight with her?" Deidara tilted her head to the side. Ino didn't understand either.

"I was expecting one of you to accuse the other of stealing your hairstyle. I've seen you do odder things." Hiruko's tail lashed through the air.

Deidara frowned. "Why would I do that?"

Ino scoffed as well. This confused everyone else.

The 'men' stared. "What?"

The blondes rolled their eyes and, as if they'd practiced it, spoke in unison. "Blond rule number five: no blond shall accuse another of hairstyle theft based solely on the presence of eye-concealing bangs."

Deidara leaned back in her seat. "Duh. We all know that."

They continued to stare. Deidara turned to her fellow blonde. "Are they always like this?"

"No, they're usually playing Shogi and being lazy. What about-?" Ino gestured at the puppet.

"Sasori? He's okay. I mean, being partnered with him is a lot better than being partnered with Kakuzu or something. I mean, he killed all his partners before Hidan."

"Brat, stop giving away informa—"

"I'm Deidara." She stuck out a hand. Ino shook it.

"Yamanaka Ino." She yelped and pulled her hand back. "What the h***?"

Deidara threw her head back and laughed. "Ah, gets 'em every time."

She held up her hand, letting a tongue loll out through the hole in the palm of her glove.

Ino stared, then smirked. "Kinky."

Deidara started laughing again, though it was more of a giggle, but it died off much more quickly than before. "You're amusing."

"Same to you." Ino was slowly growing less tense. "What's a girl like you doing in Akatsuki anyways?"

Deidara stared at the ceiling as she waited a few seconds, looking for all the world like she was lost in thought. Really, though, she was just waiting for as many of the Konoha Nin to be taking a sip of water as she could before she spoke. She finally did when everyone but pineapple boy was drinking. "I lost a bet."

Ah, the glory of spit takes.

"D*** it, brat. Did you have to-?"

"Yes. Yes I did."

Ino coughed and looked at Deidara in horror. "You joined because you _lost a bet?_"

"It was a bet against Uchiha Itachi." Deidara said, a little miffed. "That should explain everything."

They kept staring at her. "What? It's true. I lost a bet against Uchiha Itachi, and now they won't let me leave. Trust me, I tried. Personally, I wanted to keep being a bomber for hire, just blowing the s*** out of everything, but _no…_"

She started grumbling to herself. The Konoha Nin looked at each other, though Asuma seemed more interested in his now-damp cigarette. Ino coughed into her fist. "Er…" She tried to find something to talk about, and finally decided on something that looked worthwhile. "How do you keep your hair that healthy?"

…

What?

Deidara blinked. "Tea Country hair products, actually. They're really good quality, but really expensive too." She shrugged. "But I'm S-rank, so my pay's good enough that it's not too big of a deal."

Ino deflated. "And here I was, hoping to fix up all the damage from—"

A loud beeping noise interrupted her. Deidara glanced at her watch and stood up wordlessly. She fluidly pulled a scroll out her belt, fast enough to launch it into the air. She caught it with a snap and walked off.

Team Ten stared. Sasori sighed.

"Give the brat five minutes. Deidara will probably be back by then."

"She'll be back after doing what?" Shikamaru asked, understandably suspicious.

"Oh, _she_ won't be back. _He_ will be." The uncomprehending stares were to be expected. "Deidara switches the gender of his clothes every three days. He turned it into a game to guess his gender, and we usually just stick to whichever pronoun applies at the time. Congratulations, you met us right on a turning day. And no, I'm not going to tell you which gender he actually is."

They stared at him. At least, the younger ones did. The Sarutobi was staring at the table instead, as if trying to remember something.

"Now, now, Danna, don't be an a**, un." The voice was deep, but there was something familiar in it. They turned, only to see a probably-male Deidara leaning against the café wall a few feet away, smirk on his face and amusement in his eyes. His arms were crossed and an Akatsuki cloak hung from his arm.

"You want me to tell them?" Sasori was dubious.

"Hah!" The bark of laughter was strangely enticing. "Of course not, Danna, un. All I'm say is that you don't have to be so _rude_ about it, un."

He turned and grinned at Team Ten, coming around to stand behind Ino. He put his hands on her shoulders, bringing his mouth close to her ear. "Oh? So you're suddenly uncomfortable because I'm not a girl anymore? Why? Do you find me…" His breath tickled her ears, "_attractive, un?_"

Ino was sure her face was as red as a brick by now. Deidara chuckled as he moved away to sit down where he had been before. He sat at an angle, legs crossed and one arm slung over the back of his chair as the other rested on the table.

"How old are you guys, again, un?"

"Ino and I are fourteen; Chouji is fifteen." Shikamaru answered, knowing that Ino wouldn't in her current state, Chouji wouldn't bother, and Asuma was halfway between amused and scared for all their lives.

"Really, un? That's a pity." Deidara leaned over to lean his head in the palm of one hand. He sent Ino another lazy grin. "You're really quite pretty, but three years is a bit much for an age difference at this point, I suppose, un."

Asuma suddenly stood, turning. "I think we'll be going now. Ino, Chouji, Shikamaru."

He left, not glancing back, though he was, as are all ninja of his caliber and above, aware of what was going on. His team followed him.

"See? I told you confusing them would work, un." Deidara smirked as he watched them leave. "Wonder if they'll run into one of the other teams we saw. I already know that the smoky guy saw us before, un."

"Let's just go."

"Dine and ditch, un?" Deidara raised an eyebrow. "Eh, whatever."

Some fifty meters away, Ino was still trying to fight down her blush.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: First of all, this isn't going to have InoDei. I just put that in because it's funny. As for why Ino reacted like that… he's a hot and powerful older guy that's making frequent and vaguely suggestive comments and moves around her. She's fourteen. It's a bit of a given.**


	10. The Man in the Orange Mask

**A/N: I'm getting a lot of weird quotes in history class. I blame the election. It made every interaction from here happen **_**during a single class period.**_** Due to the number, I've spread them throughout the chapter to keep you from undergoing a craziness overdose.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_One was a super effective morning sickness preventative, and the other would become a teratogen, which means that it made your babies come out with oversized hands and feet and no arms or legs, so they looked like little tiny seals. Oh, and they'd usually be dead."_

_- the regular guy, commenting on some chemical following a discussion on the legalization of marijuana in Colorado, which is why we were discussing drugs in the first place in the prior quotes involving that._

o.o.o.o.o

"Sasori-no-Danna!" Deidara's cry rang out through the base.

He was rushing towards the splintered and broken remains of his partner, who was currently limping his way into the base.

"Brat." Sasori acknowledged the blond as he pulled one of the cracked and oozing—was that poison?—around his shoulders.

"D*** it, Danna! I thought you said this would be a normal check on your spies, un! You said I wouldn't need to come, un!"

"Orochimaru set up an ambush." Sasori explained. "At least thirty second level cursed seal users, as well as few generic Jounin, and he'd told them everything he remembered about my fighting style from when we were partnered together."

Deidara grit his teeth. "Where are we going, un? You're not going to die from this, but do you want to fix yourself up or go see Leader first, un?"

"Leader. It'll take at least two weeks to fix myself, and another six to fix all my puppets." Sasori grunted. "Hiruko's been trashed. It'll take at least three weeks just to fix her."

Deidara just glared down the hall at nothing as he hauled Sasori through the base. They didn't pass anyone, just showed up at Pein's door.

"Leader-sama?" Deidara knocked. "We've got a problem, un."

o.o.o.o.o

"_That's how wars should be decided: play Call of Duty."_

_- Different guy, same class_

o.o.o.o.o

Two days later, Deidara was a girl again, and moping a little as she filed into the meeting room. Did Hidan _have_ to tease her like that?

"Hurry up." A calm but commanding voice came from the room: Pein.

"Coming, Leader-sama." She sighed, and made her way to her seat. Sasori's was still empty.

Pein waited until everyone was in the room, even Zetsu.

"Due to Sasori's recent incapacitation, Deidara is missing a partner. We will have to temporarily replace him so as to keep up to our missions quota. Kakuzu has assured me that our finances would take a dip should we keep a team off the field for such an extended period of time."

"And you believe him?" Hidan asked, incredulous. "He just wants more money!"

"Quiet Hidan." Pein admonished him. Deidara was suspiciously quiet. She'd gotten over Sasori's injuries after just a few hours, but the concept of replacing him was a bit worrying.

"What will happen to Sasori's ring?" Itachi asked the question on Deidara's mind.

"Sasori will keep it. Like I said, this will be a temporary replacement. He will be a… reserve force, so to speak."

"I see." Itachi nodded, though there was a slight frown on his face, as if his mind were elsewhere.

Pein nodded. "Well, Deidara, I believe it's time to introduce you to your new partner."

He sent a pulse of chakra at the wall, and a seal activated, opening a wall. "His name is—"

"Tobi is a good boy!" A black and orange blur tumbled into the room, stood straight, and spun around to face Pein. It saluted. "Tobi is here, Leader-sama. Tobi wants to meet his new sempai!"

Disbelief stood out on most of the faces around them. Deidara's eyes were slowly widening, plump pink lips twitching a little.

"Your partner is Deidara. The blonde over there." He pointed at Deidara.

"Oh! Tobi is pleased to meet you, Deidara-sempai!" Tobi held out a hand, which Deidara slowly took and almost fell off her seat at how vigorously the man in the mask pumped her arm up and down. "Tobi is happy to have such a pretty girl for his sempai!"

Deidara brought up a blush to her face, turning aside. "Oh, you don't mean that."

"Of course Tobi means it. Tobi thinks that Deidara-sempai is a very cute sempai." He crossed his arms and nodded. A few of them would have killed, literally, to see under his mask. Then again, some of them would also kill for absolutely no reason, so that wasn't saying much. Deidara let her gaze drop and a contemplative look came across her face.

"Tobi thinks that Tobi and Deidara-sempai are going to be really good friends, and get ice cream and dango and…" he continued to babble, not noticing that Deidara wasn't exactly paying attention anymore.

Deidara was shuddering a little now, head down and focused on the ground.

"Oi, Dei, are you okay? You look like someone stuffed you full of that sugary c*** that Itachi likes again, seriously." Hidan was leaning forward to look at Deidara around Kakuzu.

Itachi twitched at the mention of his pocky.

Deidara's eyes were still facing the ground, hands gripping her seat's armrests. Everyone was staring, trying to gauge her reaction. Tobi had started worrying aloud, still speaking in third person.

Her head suddenly shot up, and she threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around her new partner, squeezing him closer to herself.

"Cute, cute, cute, cute, _cute, cute, cute, cute, cu~te_!" She squealed in an unbearably high pitch. "You're, like, a total Keet! This is so fr***in' awesome! Having you around is gonna be like having an overexcited puppy following me everywhere! Kyaa~ah, you're adorable!"

Tobi hugged her back, and the other members stared. Hidan facepalmed.

"Leader-sama…" Kisame said, staring wide-eyed. "What have you done?"

"Oh my gosh, I totally gotta introduce you to Danna!" Deidara started pulling him out of the meeting room, and he wasn't exactly putting up a fight. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, c'mon!"

Itachi's pocky snapped. His patience was close to doing the same.

o.o.o.o.o

"_About what you said earlier about gay marriage being legal in half a dozen states: there are twenty seven states where it's legal to marry your first cousin. Just so you know."_

_- The usual guy. He does support gay marriage. He was just commenting on the hypocrisy of incest._

o.o.o.o.o

It took less than five minutes for Tobi and Deidara to go outside and blow things up. Or rather, it took five minutes for Deidara to go outside and mold sculpture after sculpture, while Tobi watched with blatant awe as they exploded.

"So? What can you do, kohai?" Hey, if he was going to call her sempai…

"Ooh! Ooh! Tobi can teleport and be a ghost!" Tobi wind-milled his arms through the air, showing his excitement with showing off to his new sempai.

"Eh? A ghost?" Deidara tilted her head for a second, and then pointed at him imperiously. "Show me, oh minion of mine!"

"Okay, sempai!" Tobi seemed to swirl in on himself, and Deidara suddenly felt the masked man's chakra behind her.

She turned with a grin on her face, putting her arms up a little, excited. "That was totally wicked!" (1)

"Tobi's happy that Deidara-sempai likes his magic teleportation!"

"Now," Deidara cupped her chin in her hand. "What was that about being a ghost?"

Tobi just ran up a tree. "Okay sempai. The tree is solid, right?"

Deidara nodded, wondering where he was going with this. Tobi dropped back to the ground…

And walked _through_ the tree.

Deidara stared…

And evil laughter filled the air.

People everywhere shivered.

She walked over to Tobi and wrapped an arm around him, not quite tall enough to sling her arm around his shoulders, even in her heels.

"Oh, we are going to have _fun_."

"Okay, sempai! What should Tobi do first?"

o.o.o.o.o

"_Didn't they destroy part of his house?"  
"Oh yeah, they blew up part of his house because they landed a helicopter on his roof to get to him."_

_- The two guys that normally say this stuff, the more prolific is the second. It was something about the US getting some guy from New Zealand on rape charges to get him to Sweden so they could arrest him on charges from the US, and messing up procedure while getting him._

o.o.o.o.o

"Is it a ruse?"

Zetsu shrugged, glancing over at Tobi. "Deidara is… unstable. **In other words, he's a crazy-a** little b******.**"

Tobi blinked. "Deidara's male? I thought for sure that…"

"Have you read the rule book yet? It should explain everything. Simply put, figuring out Deidara's gender is a game. **Hidan, Kisame and I all found out pretty early, but Itachi, Konan, and Kakuzu still haven't got a clue.** We're not going to tell you, either."

"Oh? Why not?" Tobi raised an eyebrow behind the mask.

"It's more fun this way. **We want to see you squirm in confusion.**" Zetsu's white side grinned over at Tobi.

"…Well, I guess that's one way to get some entertainment." He shrugged and left, yelling as soon as he stepped foot outside the room. "Deidara-sempai! Where are you~?"

"…**Male Dei's going to kick his a** at some point."**

There was a moment of thought.

"Probably."

o.o.o.o.o

"_Back then, if I said 'King George is a yogurt-head,' boom, my head was gone."_

_- My history teacher._

o.o.o.o.o

Tobi saw Deidara come walking towards him, conspicuously lacking a chest or dress. "Sempai?"

A grunt was his only answer.

"Eh? Sempai, did Tobi do something wrong? Ah!" Tobi started to panic, running around in circles and flailing his arms. "Tobi did something to make Deidara-sempai angry! Tobi wasn't a good boy! Tobi has to—!"

"Shut _up_, un." Deidara glared over at Tobi with slightly red eyes. "I've got a h*** of a hangover after going out with Hidan last night, and I don't want to deal with your s***, un. You got that?"

Tobi nodded vigorously, and saluted. "Yes, sempai. Tobi understands." His voice was quieter now, careful of the hangover that Deidara claimed to have.

"Good. Let's go, un."

"Wait!" At Deidara's glare, he quieted down again. "Sorry. But if sempai went out with Hidan-san, then does that mean that sempai and Hidan-san are a couple?"

Deidara rolled his eyes. "No. We're just friends and we go out clubbing sometimes. Now let's go."

He strode out, and Tobi skipped along behind, though said skipping paused when he heard Deidara grumble something rather odd from up ahead.

"D*** penguins. Stupid drinking game. Never again…" He rubbed the heel of one palm against his visible eye.

'_What?'_ Is it any surprise that poor Tobi was confused?

o.o.o.o.o

(1) That line was a reference to the little kid on the tricycle in The Incredibles.


	11. Yakuza

"_Are we supposed to take away from [that video] that HL Math is worse than Hitler?"_

_The same guy as always, after we watched a YouTube video about Hitler failing his HL Math exam and invading Russia to make himself feel better_

o.o.o.o.o

"Konan?" The word was accompanied with a knock on the door.

The blue-haired woman turned around to look at the door, which Deidara was poking her head around, wearing a small and slightly nervous smile.

"What do you need, Dei-chan?"

Deidara took a few steps into the room, and then just stopped, her eyes averted, not looking at Konan. "Um… remember when Hidan and I went clubbing again a few days ago?"

Konan's eyes automatically narrowed. "What did you destroy and how much of a hissy fit do I have to expect from Kakuzu?"

"No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no!" Deidara's hands were suddenly in front of her, her face panicked. "No, we didn't destroy anything! It's just…"

"What?" Konan still wasn't convinced.

"I met a guy and I need some help getting ready for the date. My hair isn't exactly cooperating…"

Konan's face lost its harsh look, a smile growing slowly. "Well, then I guess you came to the right person, sweetie. Let's get that fixed up, okay?"

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara-sempai! Where were you? Tobi was getting worried when he couldn't find sempai!" Tobi fluttered around Deidara like a worried mother hen.

Deidara just giggled a little and pushed him away. "Silly Tobi. Relax. I was just on a date."

"Oh?" Tobi was standing still now, head tilted to the side. "Was the date pretty?"

"Handsome, more like it." Deidara smirked as she passed him. "I was out with a guy. Met him at a night club a couple nights ago and we hit it off, and then he asked me out, so I said yes."

"Eh? Does he know that Deidara-sempai changes gender all the time?" He pointed at Deidara almost accusingly, prompting yet another small giggle as the blonde glanced back over her shoulder to look at him.

"Yep, and he finds it hilarious, too."

Tobi nodded decisively, arms crossed. "Then Tobi approves. Also, can Tobi say something else?" He raised his hand a little, like a shy child halfway trying to answer a question from the teacher.

"Sure. You've said plenty already. Just hurry up, I'm tired and want to get to bed as soon as possible."

Tobi grinned behind his mask, and gave Deidara a double thumbs-up. "Tobi thinks Deidara-sempai looks very pretty tonight. Sempai's date is a very lucky man."

Deidara grinned back, not even blushing. "Aw, you're so sweet. One thing, though." Her face grew serious and she pointed at him, hiding her smile at his own action of curiously pointing at himself in response.

"You're not really old, but you're old enough that people might call you a pedophile, so be careful when you say things like that, okay? The others might start thinking that we've got another Orochimaru on our hands. Not that they ever _proved_ he liked kids like that…"

Tobi saluted in a fashion that both sides of the conversation later acknowledged as extremely corny. "Okay, sempai! Tobi understands!"

"Good boy, Tobi. You're a good little Kohai." She turned around, nearly flouncing as she left, and Tobi was on his own to ponder.

_How much does Deidara know about the truth?_

o.o.o.o.o

"You haven't even told us anything about this guy." Hidan complained. He and Deidara, currently male, were on the couch in the living room, watching TV. A few feet away, Sasori was working on fixing up yet another puppet that had gotten trashed in his disastrous mission to collect information, and Kakuzu was at the kitchen table further away, reading the newspaper.

"His name is Mamoru. He's eighteen, brown hair, brown eyes, un. He's… taller than me by a couple inches, though I'm not sure how much, un. He's bi, so he doesn't care about not finding out my gender until we're ready to go _that_ far. Um…"

"It's not hard for a person to be taller than you, Dei." Hidan snorted, ignoring the good-natured punch that he got in the arm. "Even Sasori can manage it, if barely. You'll probably pass him by soon enough."

"True. And I can't wait for that day, un."

"Brat." Deidara leaned forward to glance around Hidan and look at Sasori. "You did make sure that this one isn't related to another Daimyou, right?"

"Yep, un."

"No Kage?"

"Nope."

"No other important political figures?"

"Not a one, un."

"Good."

"He's the son of the leader of the local Yakuza, un."

…

"God d*** it, brat."

Hidan's laughter rang out through the base, easily covering up Deidara's. The worst part was that Deidara wasn't even lying.

o.o.o.o.o

"Brat."

Deidara turned, looking at Sasori. "Yeah?"

"What is this?"

Sasori held up a piece of paper, obviously torn from a notepad. It was covered in Deidara's characteristic scrawl, and it only took a few seconds for Deidara to recognize it. "Oh, that, un. It's just some notes I took on Hidan's religion. It's pretty interesting, un."

"I see. And, if you don't mind me asking, what is this 'irrationality locus' supposed to be?"

"You may be a puppet, Danna," Deidara began, "But you have eyes, un. Read it yourself. Or, better yet, give it here and just wait in silence and misery as you try to figure it out or ignore me, un."

"I'll take my chances just reading it." Sasori deadpanned, knowing that listening to Deidara would amount to nothing but a headache.

Deidara smirked. "Great, un."

o.o.o.o.o

"So, how long have you and Mamoru been together now?" Konan asked as she helped Deidara put on a complicated kimono, practice for a tea ceremony to which the yakuza had invited her.

"About a month and a half. Weren't you the one that was obsessed with my love life or something? I thought you were keeping track." Deidara frowned as one particular piece simply refused to lay right.

"I'm not quite that obsessed. I just see you as a little sister I suppose… or an annoying cousin when you're male."

"True. How have you and Nagato-sama been?" The question was one that Deidara had been hoping to ask for a while.

"Deidara, what did we say about using that name?" Konan tightened a piece, possibly slightly tighter than it should have been, as if in warning.

"I can't remember. I got distracted after I heard the fourth wall break again, and stopped listening to whatever you were saying at the time. Did you know that there's a song that basically amounts to chanting words that sound vaguely technologic? It's even in the name. And there's another that used to have real words, but they got switched out for gibberish that turns into one huge tongue twister." She began humming to herself, eyes wandering around the room, before she suddenly remembered. "Oh, yeah! You and Nagato, how have you two been?"

Konan stared at her for a few seconds, an expression of disbelief scrawled across her face. "Deidara… sometimes I wonder about how sane you really are."

"The question, nee-chan!" Deidara had taken to referring to Konan as such whenever she wanted something. The term seemed to spark something in Konan that made her seem much more flexible and less uptight.

"Well, in terms of our relationship in concerns to each other, it's the same as ever. Unfortunately, his physical health is less than ideal. It's not that he refuses to eat, his body just…"

Deidara bit her lip, knowing that Konan's stillness was indicative of worry. "You know, we could ask Danna to help you guys. I'm sure he wouldn't mind too much."

Konan snorted. "It's not like Pein actually wants anyone helping him there. He doesn't want anyone to know."

"Like Itachi-kun, you mean?"

"…I'm not even going to ask how you know that information."

"Hidan, ergo, Jashin." Deidara answered promptly, sending a grin in Konan's direction.

"I'd guessed as much." Konan said drily.

"So, asking Danna to take a look? It may take a while, but I'm sure you could convince Pein-sama to let himself get looked at. You know, promises regarding sex can work wonders."

Konan stayed confused for a few seconds, and then finally questioned the blonde. "That was supposed to be a joke, right?"

Deidara tilted her head to the side. "Ish? I mean, it's definitely true, but I'm not suggesting you do it since you're too classy for that."

"You just saved yourself a lot of trouble with that last bit."

"Aw, yay!"

o.o.o.o.o

"_And this was the inspiration behind Nazi Mouse."_

_My history teacher. The class of '08 wrote a book about Hitler following the __If You Give a Mouse a Cookie__ format, called __If You Give a Dictator Appeasement_

o.o.o.o.o

Kisame was sitting on the couch. Normally, he would have Samehada with him, or maybe be talking to Itachi, but there was a reason that he didn't.

There was a very tired young blond that currently had his head in Kisame's lap, likely without realizing it. The blond wasn't even sleep talking as he'd heard Sasori complain about several times, but he was nevertheless in Kisame's lap, which meant a few things, namely that Itachi wouldn't stay near him. Deidara was like weasel repellant in that respect.

A small muffled noise came from his lap as Deidara attempted to burrow deeper under the covers, which currently consisted of his Akatsuki blankets. The blond was shivering, likely a result of either chakra exhaustion or regular deep fatigue. Of course, that also begged the question of where Tobi was, as his disappearance was likely connected to Deidara's… disarmed state.

Kisame decided that taking Deidara up to his and Sasori's room was probably the best idea now. Still, he had one stop to make first, and even a small story to explain his presence there with Deidara actually occupying his arms.

"C'mon then, buddy." He scooped Deidara up, holding him bridal style. The blonde buried his head into Kisame's shoulder, a barely audible breath making its way out of his mouth.

He carried Deidara past the first three rooms, using his heel to knock on the door to his and Itachi's room.

The door opened, revealing an emotionless weasel. The face of said weasel quickly soured as he realized just who, other than Kisame, was at his door.

"Itachi? I was wondering if you knew what might have happened to Deidara to make him like this. You're a bit closer to Tobi than I am and I didn't feel like barging into Sasori's room while he's fixing his puppets."

Itachi's expression let flicker the slightest bit of distaste. "Unfortunately, I have not been told the contents of their latest mission, and am, as such, not aware of the reasons behind Deidara's condition."

Deidara stirred a little at the second mention of his name, and his head came up. "Mm? 'Tachi? 'Same?"

"Hey kid. I'm just taking you up to Sasori, okay? You fell asleep on the couch, and me…"

"Oh…" His tone implied that he didn't quite understand, but was willing to pretend he did in his half-awake state. "What 'bout 'Tachi?"

Kisame would have patted the cute little thing's head if it weren't for the fact that he needed both hands to hold him. Really, Deidara was like a cute little teddy bear sometimes, one of those times being now.

"Just asking him about what happened to get you so tired. I thought he might know since he's closer to Tobi than I am."

"Oh…" He buried his head back into Kisame's shoulder, falling asleep again.

Five minutes later…

"Admit it." Kisame actually went ahead and poked Itachi in the side. "You thought Deidara was adorable too."

"I thought no such thing."

Kisame smirked. "Not in the sexy-cute way. The kind that makes girls squeal and want to cuddle something it's so utterly cute. Like… puppies. Or little kids in Halloween costumes when it isn't actually that time of year. Or a picture of unicorns and butterflies and kittens in a meadow."

Itachi just stared at him. Kisame rolled his eyes and, in a move that normal people would have found daring, cuffed the younger man on the shoulder. "At least admit that Dei's been growing on you."

"Hn." Itachi dodged the question and turned away, back to whatever he'd been doing before Kisame got involved.

Kisame grinned to himself. _Aw, he's embarrassed to admit that he's looking at Deidara fondly now. Probably more like a pet or an annoying kid that he has to babysit more than anything else, but fondly nonetheless._

o.o.o.o.o

"Straight flush." Deidara said.

Hidan cursed, setting his own cards down. "Three of a kind."

Deidara grinned. "Okay… when did you realize you were bi, un?"

"Sixteen, got caught up trying to steal a certain scroll back from a guy, and had to try getting into his pants. Didn't go past making out, but it made me realize that it felt just as natural as kissing a girl, so I started experimenting."

"Cool." They dealt the cards again, and the clash occurred again a minute and a half later.

"Two of a kind, ace high." Deidara said, sighing as he offered up his kings, queen, and ace.

"Four of a kind." Hidan said, showing a spread of fives.

"D***. Alright, un. What's your question?"

"Hm… at what point do you start considering a romantic partner for sex?"

Deidara blinked, leaning back. "Well, I don't have much experience, but I guess it varies according to the person and how fast the emotional side of things goes, un. Definitely not in the first month, though."

Hidan raised an eyebrow. "You've been with that Mamoru guy for two and a half months."

Deidara looked over with a grin. "Yeah, not yet. Soon, un, but not yet."

Hidan pretended to wipe away a tear. "My little Dei, growing up so fast. Going to lose his a** virginity at such a young age. Only seventeen years old, too…"

"Oi, I'm going to be eighteen in, like, two weeks, un!"

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever, blondie."

Two weeks later, Deidara came by a few days after his birthday with a relatively large and very telling grin on his face.

No one said anything out loud, but Hidan dragged Deidara out clubbing that night. His excuse would have been that it was to celebrate, but then again, this was Hidan.

Getting Deidara drunk had, however, revealed that he apparently liked being on either side of the equation, something that Hidan found rather interesting, as many of the homosexuals he'd met either insisted that they were always seme or shyly admitted to being a uke. It figured that Deidara's position on dominance was like his position on gender and sexuality.

Who gives a f***, un?

o.o.o.o.o

"Brat, are you done yet?"

It was the third mission since Sasori had declared himself once again fit for the field, and Deidara was happy about that. It wasn't that he minded being paired with Tobi, not too much, anyway, but Sasori was his Danna, and he very much liked working with his Danna.

Running into a random Oto-nin wasn't expected, but he was rather simple to deal with. He had taunted Deidara, insulting 'her' for being a girl, which made his demise all the sweeter as she proceeded to smack him about using nothing but her taijutsu, which was, for an S-rank, rather subpar.

"Almost, Danna. Just have to go through these scrolls." She picked one of the last ones up, unrolling it and reading the first line to see if it was of any use. After a second, she read it again, a slow grin working its way onto her face. "Oh, _yes_…"

A quick pulse of chakra flicked her scope on, snapping shots of the scroll.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: In response for my increased efficiency, please read ****AK: PCO****, and trope these stories. Seriously, do it.**

**PS- I caught a kiriban, which means I got a popular DA artist to draw something for me. I chose Jashin. As a result, there is now a picture of Jashin, surfing, in near-professional quality (compared to mine, definitely). There's a link to it on my profile.**


	12. Sorrow

**A/N: When I first started writing this chapter, I was trying to find a way to segue in, and came up with a bunch of ways before remembering that this was a comedy. At least, you know, for now.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_Oh, so it's emo Hitler."_

_- … Guess._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara's giggling was starting to get a little creepy.

They were all at the dinner table, as per Konan's orders, and the grin on Deidara's face as she stared at her food, the giggle that would escape once in a while, the glint of madness in her eyes… it was all a little creepy, even to the other S-class criminals. Sasori had refused to come down. He didn't even really eat, only having some odd machine that could directly turn certain foods to energy once a week or so, but he at least usually came to dinner. No one could get anything more out of him than that it was Deidara's fault, which was a given in most situations.

She giggled again.

"Stop that." Kakuzu was the one to give the order. "It's unbelievably irritating."

Deidara pouted. "Mou, Kakuzu…"

"You know, Deidara-chan," Konan always used –_chan_ when she spoke to girly Dei, always –_chan_. "You could at least tell us why you're so happy all of a sudden."

"It probably has to do with that Yakuza guy she's with." Hidan snorted.

Deidara chuckled. Not giggled, but chuckled, in a manner quite grim. "Oh no, that's not it. But you see, I picked up a scroll off of one of Orochimaru's minions on our way back after I knocked him out for being a sexist b******. It's quite… _interesting_."

The smile on her face was disturbing. She pulled out a scroll and weighed it in her hand, looking around the room, as if deciding on whom to throw it to. "Itachi-kun, catch."

Itachi's hand shot up to grab the scroll headed at his face, expression unmoving. He slowly unfurled it, reading the first line. Then his entire body seemed to seize up for a moment, and he read it again. He read the next few lines. He turned to look at Deidara, his expression still having not moved.

"Deidara," His voice was deathly quiet. "What have you done?"

Deidara's smile was a Cheshire's grin, "Everything. Well? Go on, pass it around. Don't want to keep the others guessing, do we?"

The scroll spun shut. Itachi's barely-there glare at Deidara could have chilled a lesser man. Woman. Whatever.

One by one, the table's occupants, read the scroll, finishing with Hidan. "Oh, f***."

"Maybe." Deidara agreed, enjoying the odd looks that the comment garnered. "It would certainly be a twist, ne?"

"Still… a jutsu that actually lets you fully switch genders?" Hidan glanced over it. "Shouldn't this be some sort of medical technique?"

Deidara shrugged. "I've gotten it to work, even if my control isn't as good as a medic's. I think part of it is accepting that other side of you that most people try to reject due to societal gender values or some such codswallop. That made it pretty easy for me. Still took a couple tries, but I got it to work."

"…Codswallop?"

"Shut up, dumba**." Deidara threw her fork at Hidan, grinning as she saw her best friend, and he was by this point, bat it out of the air.

"This just makes it harder for the people that still haven't figured it out." Zetsu pointed out.

"Kakuzu doesn't care." Deidara started ticking off her fingers. "Sometimes, I don't think Tobi even _realizes_ that there's something different. I like confusing Itachi, and it's driving him insane, which is a plus to me. Konan… sorry, nee-chan."

She shrugged apologetically, but the smile didn't slide off her face.

"Wait, you said you got it to work?" Kisame suddenly asked, staring at her strangely.

Deidara tilted her head to the side, bang swinging a little and partially revealing her scope. "Yeah?"

"So you actually _know_ what it's like to be both genders?"

"Yeah…" She could tell where he was going with this. "You want to know how different it feels, don't you?"

"Absolutely."

Konan pinched the bridge of her nose off to the side as Deidara began to describe things in _excruciating_ detail, not stopping even after several people at the table asked her to stop before they lost their lunches, having already lost their appetites.

"Is this why you were late coming back? Getting used to the new body, whichever one it was?" Konan finally cut in, hoping to spare her poor ears from any more descriptive storytelling. Nagato probably should have interrupted earlier, but glancing at the Deva Path lead to the conclusion that he'd cut off most of his connection to it for the duration of dinner.

"But of course!"

"You're on dish duty for the rest of the week." If Nagato wasn't going to punish her for delaying a mission for something this petty, Konan would. That was part of her job, after all.

"Aw, no fair…"

o.o.o.o.o

"_That's Bolshevik."_

_- As opposed to that's bulls***. Same guy as always._

o.o.o.o.o

"It's a little scary, how small the difference is." Hidan commented as he watched Deidara dance around the room. "I can't even tell which gender you are right now."

"I know. Pretty lucky, I think. I had to pad a little though." She patted her chest for emphasis. "I overestimated myself before. Not by too much, but I did."

"Huh. Looks pretty good, though." He turned around his chair and straddled it, resting his arms and head on the back. "What do you look like in clothing other than those frilly dresses a' yours?"

"Ne? Er… pretty good, I guess. I practiced with some other stuff, and I found a few things that look nice."

"You gonna tell your Yakuza boyfriend?"

"Duh."

o.o.o.o.o

"_A wet sea lion hit a dry sea lion."_

_- The guy that sits next to me, paraphrasing a story that the girl on his other side told him._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara threw himself onto the bed, facedown and unmoving.

"Brat? What are you doing?"

"I just got dumped, un. Again." He shifted his head to the side, and the miserable expression could be seen on his face.

Sasori sighed and came over, sitting on the side of the bed. Quite frankly, he wasn't very good at this, but Konan had explained to him when he first joined Akatsuki that with Deidara's age, emotions were a volatile thing that need to be carefully handled, and that there may be times when he would need to comfort the younger artist.

"Come here, brat."

His lap was suddenly filled with a mess of blonde hair attached to a head that seemed to really want to use him for a pillow. He sighed and lifted Deidara's head a little, grabbing an actual pillow to stuff onto his lap, because god knows his lap must be uncomfortable. Deidara was clutching an old, worn little stuffed bear to his chest, face obscured by hair and pillow.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

A muffled noise came from the pillow, and Deidara's head shook a little. "I see."

He started petting Deidara's head, untangling the bird's nest that had become the mess of hair on the brat's head.

"Would you mind telling me what happened? I know you're more comfortable with me than with Konan, and I can tell her later for you if you want. You know that she'll ask."

Deidara shook his head again, making another one of those sad keening noises. Sasori just sighed and tried to lull the kid to sleep. This was not what he signed up for.

…Still, that didn't mean that Deidara didn't look cute curled up in his lap like this. Kind of like a little kitten.

o.o.o.o.o

"_Look at them, aren't they cute? With their little swastika armbands, makes you just wanna hug 'em and then you just feel creepy because, hey, it's a bunch of Nazi mice and they're all saluting Hitler Mouse."_

_- My history teacher_

o.o.o.o.o

It took Sasori two days to coax the story out of Deidara.

"It basically boiled down to us wanting different things in life, un, I guess." Deidara seemed uncomfortable. "I mean, he was fine with the whole gender flip thing at first when I showed him, but I guess that's what got him thinking about stuff, un."

"About what?"

"I don't know, me being an S-class nukenin, un? I mean, I'm a lot more powerful than he ever will be, even though he's got more clout in the criminal world, un, and I think that's his main reason. He just said that he didn't think we would be able to last very long, un. I could do things that he found impossible, and everyone was already telling him that it was a bad idea to be involved with someone that could lie to or kill him so easily, un."

"Would you have?"

"No." Deidara shook his head, which was still buried in his knees. "I wouldn't have, un."

Sasori sighed, and once again pulled Deidara to his chest, feeling like some protective father or comforting brother. It was disgusting. He was supposed to have gotten rid of such emotions long ago.

Still, having someone to care for and hug to his chest like this felt… nice, he supposed.

o.o.o.o.o

"_Hitler was a crazy mother-f__ü__hrer who never managed to successfully invade Germany."_

_- The last line in the Nazi Mouse book._

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan and Sasori were in the kitchen, and saw Deidara sitting morosely at the table. His head was resting on his folded arms, and he was staring at the empty vase in the middle of the table.

"He's taking this a lot harder than the Yumiko thing." Hidan muttered. Sasori shrugged.

"I suppose. Give it enough time and he'll get over it."

Hidan frowned. "I'm taking him out clubbing tonight. I know it's not the healthiest solution or whatever, but it's the quickest we've got. I don't want to see him like this. It's been a week already, and it's kind of creepy, seriously."

Sasori glanced up at him, and then back at Deidara. "I think you're right."

There was silence for a few seconds, and they heard Deidara start humming a song neither had heard before to himself.

"I think it's because it came directly this time." Sasori told Hidan. "With Yumiko, well, she lied about some things, but she also suffered just as much, if not more, when they broke up. It was mutual, from what I could tell, and mostly just a result of her circumstances. Here, it's more of a blow because Mamoru, while he had his reasons, made the choice to end things."

Hidan mulled it over for a few seconds. "Yeah, I think I get it."

o.o.o.o.o

"_See, this is how bad IB is. We don't even know how to have fun. We keep messing it up."_

_- A guy in my English class; we were… __**trying**__ to play Pictionary… it kind of took us fifteen minutes to even set it up, find the cards, articulate everything… we really did mess up multiple times_


	13. The Moment You've All Been Waiting For

**A/N: Okay, here's the thing about Deidara. It takes him two weeks to get over this. I have personally never been in a serious relationship, and don't know how a person normally takes being dumped, especially someone like Deidara, who has been diagnosed with several mental illnesses, suicidal thoughts and possible depression included, along with the schizo-pyro stuff and the gender-bending. So if you think the handling of the situation is unrealistic, please tell me so that I can fix it.**

**However, I also want to note this: by the time Hidan gets involved towards the end (you know what I'm talking about), Deidara's over it. It doesn't have an effect on the thing that everyone's been waiting for.**

**Also: SPOILER ALERT FOR THIS CHAPTER. Tobi's identity is revealed/discussed.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_If you don't do your readings, you'll go to h***. Trust me on this one. I am a registered minister. I can perform marriage ceremonies and everything. I even have a card."_

_- A paraphrase of my teacher, joking. And yes, he's told us that we'll go to h*** if we don't do our homework/readings, and shown us his minister card._

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori looked up when he heard the door open and someone take shuffling steps in. Hidan was there, carrying Deidara bridal style.

"How was he?" He quietly asked.

"…bad." Hidan admitted. "Tried too hard, but you could tell that he wasn't really all too thrilled. Tuckered himself out, so…"

"Well, you tried, at least." Sasori came up and came over to stand over Deidara's bed like Hidan, taking note of everything to make sure the blond wouldn't suddenly start suffering multiple organ failure due to alcohol poisoning; if he had to get Deidara's hair out of his face on the way, it was just to check his pupils, not…

"He's gonna have a h*** of a hangover in the morning." Hidan mentioned for a lack of anything better to do.

"I'd say that it's his own fault, but that would be a little harsh, even for me." Sasori said humorlessly, and they fell into silence, which Hidan broke only a few seconds in.

"I kind of feel like a creeper, watching him sleep like this." Hidan admitted, shifting awkwardly on his feet. Sasori rolled his eyes and pointed to a chair by the table, taking the other one for himself.

"Some would call it romantic." Sasori mentioned, watching Hidan out of the corner of his eye.

Hidan frowned. "The h***? Where did that come from?"

Sasori shrugged. "After the Yumiko thing a couple of months ago, Konan seemed to have the idea that you and Deidara were meant for each other or something. Then Mamoru happened and she let it go, but I'm sure she'll soon start insisting, again, that you and Deidara will get together."

Hidan watched him, trying to measure the puppet's nonexistent expression. "You never mentioned what you thought of it."

Sasori looked at him through hooded eyes, and sighed. "There's potential. You two have known each other for years, and I would be lying if I said that you two never seemed to have any sexual tension lingering around you, but it was never particularly obvious either."

"You want me to try a relationship with him." Hidan surmised.

"I want you to think about it." Sasori corrected. "Only you two can actually know if you want something like this, I'm just pointing out that there's a chance that you two could work out."

Hidan rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I can't promise anything. F***, I'm not even sure if I'll remember this in the morning."

"You what?"

"I'm nowhere near sober right now."

"That's… just go to your room, Hidan." Sasori waved a hand dismissively at the taller man.

"Yes, _mum_."

"Out."

o.o.o.o.o

"Brat, up."

Deidara moaned, burying his head deeper into the pillow. The noise _hurt_.

"We've got a mission." Sasori went over and shook Deidara's shoulder.

No response.

"You get to use your C2."

Deidara's head shot up. "Really?!" Then he cringed at the sound of his own voice.

"Yes. Fix that hangover of yours and let's go."

Several rooms away, Konan was sitting next to Nagato, who was out of his machine, rubbing a thumb over the back of his too-thin hand.

"Are you sure this will work?"

"It's Deidara." Nagato would have shrugged, but didn't. "If permission to destroy something with a large explosion doesn't help, I can't think of what will. He's been getting over it slowly on his own, but he's already been diagnosed with depression, so I don't want to take any chances."

"I thought Zetsu said it was some sort of bipolar disorder?" Konan squeezed his hand a little. "Or do you consider that negligible because of how manufactured half his personality is?"

"The second, but the point is that he has had trouble with depression in the past, and we don't want that affecting his performance. Moreover, well, you remember what Zetsu said about that C0 that Deidara told him about…"

"I don't think he's that far gone." Konan's voice was tight, worried. "He's depressed, but not quite suicidal." Her grip on Nagato's hand tightened.

"Konan, my hand…" Nagato sighed as she released it with a quiet apology. "If this doesn't work, I'll call in Madara and have him play the Tobi act."

"If nothing else, it might give him a quick laugh." Konan muttered, leaning to the side the rest her head on a bony shoulder.

"Deidara's the kind that can bounce back. This is a bit worse than usual, but he'll be fine." Nagato's hand, the one that wasn't trapped by Konan's, reached around and up to the woman's neck, up to her jaw, up to her cheek, and pulled her into a short, soft kiss. Konan pulled away and then wrapped her arms around him, ducking her head in under his chin. His arms rested around her back.

"Nagato… how have _you_ been? Please don't lie this time. I can tell when you do, and…" Her voice nearly broke. S-class kunoichi she may have been, but she was also a woman in love, and a woman with far too much to worry about right now. "…and I can't stand to see you like this."

Nagato sighed, patting her on the back. "I know. I've been trying, Konan. I've been trying to get better, but you know how bad my health is."

Konan was silent, and Nagato was glad that he couldn't see her face. "…I understand. It's just… I'm afraid that even something like this, a _hug_, is going to break you. I can feel your ribs like this and…"

Nagato winced. "I know. But with the paths, the Rinnegan, and these thrice-d***ed chakra rods…"

Konan tightened her hug, though only a little. "I know, Nagato. I know."

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was finally back to normal a week later. He took to spending even more time with Sasori and Hidan, sometimes Konan as well, but mostly the first two. He'd gotten a bit more touchy-feely, but everyone knew how unstable his mental state was normally, so they let him, afraid of making him worse now that he was even more unbalanced than usual.

That was the situation that found _her_ curled up on the couch in between Hidan and Itachi, clutching a teddy—she rarely let it go, these days—and snuggled up to Hidan, who had his arms around her. Itachi looked uncomfortable, but Deidara had gotten a look on her face that seemed impossibly sad when he'd tried to excuse himself, with a possible hint of panic hidden in her eyes as well. Unfortunately, he couldn't tell if she was acting or not, and so chose to stay and try to avoid an unnecessary conflict.

"Hey, Dei." Hidan whispered and nudged the blond, who looked up with slightly bleary eyes. "I've gotta go on a mission in about fifteen minutes."

"Eh? When are ya gonna be back?" She rubbed a fist in one eye, which, with the teddy bear and her own remarkably innocent face and expression, made for a picture that probably would have made Konan start cooing and fawning over her, stoic as the woman normally was.

"Tomorrow morning. Can you let me up?" That was pretty much his reason for waking her up in the first place, after all.

"'Kay, un." She propped herself up and then finally just sat up straight, not even bothering to protest when Hidan ruffled her hair on his way out.

Itachi blinked. She never ended her sentences with 'un' as a girl. Never.

Deidara yawned, and Itachi suddenly found a young blonde, one that supposedly either hated him or was crushing on him, curling up into his side, snuggling her teddy and apparently seeking some body heat.

"Deidara." That one word should have been enough to warn her off, but…

"Mou, 'tachi… I'm tired. C'mon, please, un?" She didn't even look up.

"Deidara, that's…" Itachi trailed off as he realized that Deidara's heartbeat and breathing had slowed back down in the past fifteen seconds. She was once again asleep.

She slid off his shoulder and into his lap. It was… uncomfortable. He quickly grabbed a pillow and shoved it under Deidara's head, unknowingly mimicking Sasori's actions from several weeks before.

A camera flashed from the doorway, and Itachi looked up to see Kisame at the entrance of the room.

"Cute." It was Kisame's only comment, and then he was gone again.

Itachi glanced down at the young woman in his lap. Well, maybe the others had a point when they said that…

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara grinned.

He was sitting on Hidan's shoulder with a foam bat in his hands. Several yards away, Tobi was on Kisame's shoulders with the same.

They probably looked like idiots.

With a pair of war cries, Hidan and Deidara came at their opponents, ready to trash them.

o.o.o.o.o

"I envy you." Konan said pensively as she ran a brush through the younger girl's hair. Said younger girl was occupied with a tub of popcorn, watching a movie. "Your hair's so much longer and smoother than mine."

It was not a romance. It was not a horror. It was not a supernatural adventure. It wasn't a failure with sparkly vampires that could have been decent had someone else written or directed it.

It was a children's movie. Specifically, it was a movie about Princess Barbie.

Konan didn't get the allure either. She was a little relieved when the movie finally ended, and found Deidara's humming afterwards to be a little relaxing.

_Smooth it glides upon its travel,  
Here a wimple, there a gleam—  
O the clean gravel!  
O the smooth stream!_

_Sailing blossoms, silver fishes,  
Pave pools as clear as air—  
How a child wishes  
To live down there!"_

Konan blinked as the song swam out from the girl in front of her. She seemed focused on something, as if looking at another world that no one else could, despite the fact that her eyes were closed.

"But I wanted to hear the rest…" The complaint was soft and plaintive, but jarring after the song from before. "You can't just leave me hanging like that."

"Deidara, are you hearing voices again?"

Deidara's eyes blinked open and she turned back to face Konan. "What?"

"Are you hearing voices again?"

Deidara giggled, a sound that Konan was happy to hear after the two weeks where they were all worried for the young terrorist's mental health. "I always hear the story, it's just quieter when Zetsu gives me the pills. I can ignore it then, if I want to. The author's kind enough for that."

Konan took a deep breath, and smiled at Deidara. "Sure he is."

"She. The author is a girl."

"Right."

If it kept Deidara from getting depressed…

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara frowned at the food in front of him. "The h***, un? Who cooked?"

"Oh! Tobi did!" Tobi waved his hands around.

"You suck." Blunt as ever.

"Aw, but Tobi tried…"

"I know, that's what makes it so sad, un. And at your age…" He shook his head

"Eh? Tobi never told Deidara-sempai his age." Tobi tilted his head inquisitively.

"I know a guy, un. That guy knows a different guy. _That_ guy knows everything, un."

Tobi crossed his arms, hiding his growing suspicion and panic. "He doesn't know the color of Tobi's underwear!"

"Underwear?" Deidara snorted. "Really, un?"

"Well?" _Ha_, Tobi thought, _he'll never guess that they're blue_.

"Blue."

Tobi stared.

"I didn't even have to ask, un. The fourth wall was all I needed."

A shout came from the second floor. "Oi, Deidara! Stop doing weird s***!"

"Sorry! I forgot, un!"

"Eh?"

"Hidan can hear through the fourth wall too, but only when he wants to. I have to listen to it all the time, un." Deidara explained.

"Can Tobi hear the fourth wall?"

"Hear through it." Deidara corrected. "And… no, I don't think you can, un."

"Aw…" It was pitiful for a man of thirty years that to react like that. Well, his human parts were thirty… His non-human bits were closer to sixteen.

"Man up. You're older than I am, even if you don't act it, un." Deidara smacked his shoulder. "Now move. The dinner you made is terrible, un, and someone has to fix it."

"How old does Sempai think Tobi is?" There was no way he would—

"Thirty, give or take a few months, un. 'Course, there's, like, a third of you that's only about sixteen after the boulder…"

Tobi stared, motionless.

"I heard it about a minute and a half ago, un." Deidara pointed to the ceiling with a grin. "Though Hidan told me about the rock slide… Pretty interesting life story, that is."

He then pushed past Tobi to get to the food. "Now, how to fix this…"

Tobi stared at Deidara's back, and then his 'visible' eye narrowed; the idea of _Tobi_ fled, leaving only Uchiha Obito. He reached one hand out to grab the large kitchen knife on the side. He'd have to grab Deidara while he could and get what information the blonde had as soon as possible. He hefted the knife and—

"I wouldn't do that, un." Deidara said, not turning around to face the masked man. "It's not exactly the safest course of action, Tobi, un."

"You—"

"I can tell what you're thinking, but only sometimes, un. I can only tell when the author decides to write out your thoughts, un." Deidara still hadn't turned around, busy fixing the night's meal, but there was a smirk on his face.

"You know the future?"

"By a few seconds at most, unless she decides to foreshadow. Still, Hidan's much better at it than I am, un." Deidara was lucky that no one was around. "You should sit down while I finish up, un. It'll be a while."

Obito took his seat slowly, keeping his eyes on Deidara the whole time. "How much do you know about my past?"

"At the moment? Your name, un. You didn't really put much effort into designing yourself a new name, did you? Flipped the syllables around, and that's it, un, right?"

Obito stiffened behind him, because he'd done exactly that, and only one person was supposed to know. Only Zetsu should—

"Doesn't he count as two people, un?" Deidara's tone was mostly conversational, though Obito could _hear_ the smirk, if he listened closely enough. "Or maybe he is just one person. One and a half?"

"That's—"

"Irrelevant, I know." Deidara cut him off. "Now, could you let me fix up this mess you made? I need to make this edible somehow."

Obito hunkered down, calming down until he could once again act as the cheery idiot he normally was.

"Tobi can't wait to try Sempai's dinner!"

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan was trying to find something, and Deidara was sitting on the priest's bed. It was a normal day, as far as they were concerned, until Deidara decided to take a certain action that she had been mulling over for about a week and a half.

"Hey Hidan?" She called out, and waited for him to turn around, or at least look over his shoulder. "Can you please come stand over here?"

Hidan came and stood on the indicated spot, waiting to see what Deidara would do. He'd figured out years ago that wondering about what Deidara did or wanted rarely did you any good, and the results were generally rather amusing nonetheless.

She stood and slowly stalked around him, one finger to her chin. She seemed to be examining him from every angle, trying to drink in every detail. Hidan folded his arms and raised an eyebrow as she started poking him here and there and everywhere.

"What are you doing?"

"Hush." She put her hands on his face, and even went so far as to pull open one eye, as if checking for the pupil's reaction. She moved back, though only by about a foot, one finger to her chin. She tapped it, staring Hidan in the eye with a speculative look on her face.

"Well, find what you were looking for?" Hidan asked, sardonic tone blatant.

"Almost. There's just one more test." Then she grabbed the back of his head and pulled him into a kiss. It was soft, chaste, nothing particularly passionate by any standards, but there was a spark, Hidan thought. There was something there that there never was in his one night stands.

Deidara moved back, eyelids snapping back open. She stared off to the side, cupping her head in her chin and nodding to herself. She turned to look back at Hidan, who still hadn't moved from the surprise.

"You're taking me out on a date on Friday." She turned and left the room.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR! But of course, the story isn't quite over yet. No, the romance was not the main point of the story. It was minor, a mere half-dozen chapters to whet your appetite for the true narrative. The humor is coming, and after that, the power, the pain, the sheer insanity that results from a grave loss, and the humor shall never leave even when the world seems ready to collapse. I'm taking you on a rollercoaster called Cerebus, and I'm not letting you get off.**


	14. Transitioning into

"_If you want to get something done, you have to put a Nazi in charge."_

_- Guy in my History class, but not the usual one_

o.o.o.o.o

Konan's smile was near blinding. "You asked him out?"

"Yep! Why are you so—?"

"Oi, Kakuzu!" Konan left the room, calling for the miser. "I was right! Deidara made the first move! You and Sasori lost the bet!"

Deidara blinked. They'd made a bet on her? Well, that was… meh.

She shrugged, leaving the room in pursuit of the older woman.

o.o.o.o.o

It took Hidan half an hour of begging and threats to get Kakuzu to give him some money for the date. H***, if he was doing this for Deidara, he was doing it _right_, d***it.

The indulgent look on Konan's face whenever she saw them making preparations on Friday was a little disturbing, but…

In any case, this wasn't actually half bad. Hidan had taken a while to think through it, trying to see how much of a chance he and Deidara had of working out, though he was sure that his best friend, or whatever they were now, had put plenty of thought into it himself. At least, if the 'examination' Deidara gave him prior to the kiss was any indication, there was at least a little thought put into beyond: hey, this sounds interesting, let's try it out. Granted, Deidara did have a strange tendency to overthink things while pretending that he, or she since Deidara's gender didn't seem to have any effect on it, was just acting on a whim, on impulse.

So he 'freshened up' as much as could be expected of him, knowing who he was and how he did things. Deidara probably didn't expect him to do too much, but he could at least put on a nice shirt (white and pressed, actually, one of the few he had) since most places had a no shirt, no shoes, no service rule.

Deidara decided to go as a girl. There would be more than enough issues just going in their Akatsuki cloaks; dealing with any enemies that were homophobic on top of that would just be irritating. Granted, most ninja didn't care, since there was such a _carpe diem_ philosophy ingrained into the collective mind of the shinobi world, but there was still the occasional idiot that just wouldn't shut up.

Deidara herself wore the Lolita dresses that had become the norm for her, though with some alterations that she had only recently begun experimenting with. There was a sheath-like dress on top of the skirt, reaching at least two feet past the main body of the dress, cut in the front in a wide, upside-down V shape, showing the regular fluffed-up skirt and stocking-ed legs beneath.

It was odd, Hidan decided, to go out somewhere with Deidara as a date instead of as a pair of friends just trying to find something fun to do. There was a sense about them as they walked along that made people titter at how cute they were, rather than at how odd they were. There was a sense of intent as well; it was a date, not just hanging out. It was… a little stressful.

Despite that, they had fun. Deidara grabbed a hold of Hidan's hand about fifteen minutes after they entered a village that was holding a festival, uncharacteristic blush on her face. Hidan's face wasn't much better. For all her bluster with the initial kiss two days earlier, Deidara was really quite nervous about upgrading his/her relationship with Hidan.

They took to a small café, where, after the food showed up, their demeanors quickly relaxed enough to engage in their normal banter. They then landed on the topic of _why_ Deidara asked Hidan out—or rather, why she ordered him to take her out on a date in the first place—at which point the blush made a hard-won return to her face. She quietly explained her reasoning, nothing particularly special in any case. Small hints from Konan had made her consider the idea distantly, then a certain amount of analyzing herself and Hidan, overthinking things. Realizing that it was a possibility, trying to calculate the probability of them working out and then just deciding, screw it, she'd be reckless and give it a shot and f*** the consequences.

Then Hidan kissed her.

There wasn't anything that particularly caused this kiss. But those kinds of lines had a tendency to bring a fond and indulgent smile to his face normally, so a kiss was (probably) the logical progression of that in their new… relationship.

Deidara's look of shock at the kiss after he broke away was worth it. The silly grin and (again) the (rather uncharacteristic but increasingly common) blush even more so. The fact that she kissed him back a second later? That was just icing on the slice of cake that was put on the table between them after a minute by a rather flustered young waitress.

They thanked the waitress—S-rank or not, there were such things as common courtesies—and dug into the cake. Hidan, despite being older, wasn't in the habit of being in long relationships, or even anything more lasting than a few consecutive one-night stands, and so wasn't quite sure about how to go about during a date. Fortunately, or not, Deidara had plenty more experiences in how a date should go, and proceeded to try to feed Hidan by claiming it was a regular part of a date. She may have been joking, but he didn't really feel like arguing. Especially when she smudged some icing on his lip and leaned in to lick it off, leading to yet another kiss. Neither of them had used tongue yet, but just the kisses themselves were an experience, because they were so different from what had become the norm for the two. Not to mention that the kisses just felt… _right_.

They started heading back, and Deidara, after only a few dozen meters, ran into a pole.

"Wait, what?"

Deidara looked up at the sky, still walking. "I haven't run into a—"

CLANG.

"Ow…" Deidara lay on the ground, disoriented. "Okay… I deserved that…"

Hidan stared down at his… _friend_ of some sort with a currently indeterminate relationship in concerns to him, and tilted his head. "You need any help?"

"There are three of you, un. I'm gonna say yes."

Hidan squatted down and picked Deidara up, maneuvering her around to hang off of him piggy-back style. "I'll carry you back to the base, but I can't be blamed for if your skirt flies up or something."

"Okay. I can't be bothered to care right now…" She put her head down, burrowing her face into his neck and breathing in his scent.

Fifteen minutes later, out on the road in the twilight, Hidan felt something odd.

"Deidara…"

"Hm?"

"Are you biting my neck?"

A giggle. "Just nibbling. Why? Do you…" a heavy breath, taunting, "_like_ it?"

"…Yes, but we're in the middle of the road." He thought for a few more seconds. "You know what? I'm dropping you."

"Aw." Deidara managed to catch herself on the drop, but immediately compensated for having to walk by hugging Hidan's arm. "Mean…"

"Then why are you with me?"

She began humming, and he gave up on the question.

"Hm… hug me, un." Deidara commanded, stepping closer so that their sides pressed together.

"We're walking right now. That would be so awkward, it's sad. You can't hug someone while walking around for longer than a few seconds, seriously."

"Arm around my waist, then." Deidara's eyes were closed, faced pressed close to the side of Hidan's chest.

Feeling slightly odd about it, Hidan shrugged his arm out of Deidara's grip and wrapped it around her waist, pulling her close. She fit into his side, like a puzzle piece.

"Yeah, like that. That feels a lot better." One of Deidara's hands drifted over to close on Hidan's.

Hidan had a fleeting thought that this was nearly too perfect.

…

Nah, they'd probably start d**king around like normal again soon. The romance probably wouldn't change too much.

o.o.o.o.o

He was right. By the next day, Hidan and Deidara were back to snarking small insults with wide grins at each other, back to sitting on each other's beds and bothering people 'til they got kicked out again, back to nearly killing each other in training and driving each other to exhaustion. Still, some small differences were apparent too.

Deidara was more likely to come over and lie down on his bed when Hidan was there, cuddling up to him more than he had before. Hidan found himself catching her on his way out for a mission, giving her a goodbye kiss that had her giggling like a schoolgirl. Deidara's 'cuddling sessions' on the couch moved to outright sitting on Hidan's lap, with the larger man's arms wrapped, well, lovingly around the blond one's torso, with chin on shoulder, and sometimes lips on neck.

Deidara held to his one month rule, and then, when Hidan finally got him to come to bed, to finally just follow the orders of their hormones, _oh!_

Hidan found Deidara's capability to instantaneously change sex something that was _very_ fun. In bed, of course. There was also one or two times where Deidara somehow convinced _Hidan_ to change sex for the night, though that never lasted for more than an hour.

Neither of them particularly cared for dominance, though they did have some other BDSM leanings as well, albeit ones that didn't quite match up to the other's. Hidan was a sadomasochist, rather obviously at that, but Deidara was a bit more subtle.

Hidan's first reaction to Deidara's suggestion to tie her to the bed was confusion. He had had no idea that Deidara liked bondage, but at least it explained why she'd kept those handcuffs that she'd once pickpocketed from a civilian policeman after sneaking out of a prison while he, for Deidara was in male mode at the time, was more or less _drunk off his a**_.

Still clubbing like wild animals and killing people every few days.

But going to a movie or a café on a nice little Saturday afternoon.

Still flinging food and whatever else came to hand during dinners.

But casually feeding one another, Hidan quite embarrassed, when out on the town.

Still flinging little insults at each other with constant teasing.

But apologizing with a kiss for every one and more at night.

Still Hidan and Deidara, vitriolic best friends with a passion for mayhem.

But also Hidan and Deidara, new couple that couldn't get enough of each other.

o.o.o.o.o

"_And so Nazi Mouse is gone."_

_- The end of WWII_

o.o.o.o.o.

_In a land quite far away_:

A golden pulse of energy ran through the land, though it was soon forgotten as the people there saw such oddities quite often. The pulse moved, and began getting stronger and more concentrated, again, and again, and again and again and again andagainandagainand_again_**again**_again_**again**_again_**again.**

The pulses suddenly ceased.

From the point that the pulses had converged on, a gold and red butterfly rose, wingspan barely wide enough to reach from a woman's pinky to thumb. It fluttered up from the lush green grass of the clearing it had appeared in, until it was several feet off the ground. Golden power flowed from it, forming an odd symbol in midair, that of a triangle ensconced in a circle, the points of the triangle firmly rooted in the circle. It spun in the air, faster and faster, blurring until it looked more like a translucent disk. Then it became completely opaque, just a golden circle hanging in the air. The butterfly fluttered through, and the disc dispersed.

A plane of existence away, the same butterfly left a similar disk, and landed on the ground in a specialized room meant particularly for this purpose.

The butterfly was gone. In its place stood a tall woman, made taller by her heeled red shoes. Her long golden hair was pulled up into a bun, and yet more hair fell from the bun in a long ponytail. Her eyes were blue and sharp, her plump lips pulled tight in a stern, disapproving frown. Her arms were crossed under her modest chest, and her body was covered in a red dress, completed by a scarf that was the same crimson color of blood. An odd glow came from her, representing the power she carried.

She stalked off down the hallway, ignoring the demons that bowed out of respect and fear, frowns on their faces since they didn't particularly like her very much. She knew her way around here, and knew that this building wouldn't hold more than a few dozen souls, nowhere near as much as the other two realms. The hallways were barren, and it took her only a few minutes to get out and into the streets.

The demons present gave her a wide berth, out of respect, out of fear, and occasionally out of disgust. She ignored them again, making her way towards the large administrative building.

She didn't bother introducing herself to the receptionist, simply brushed past and made her way up the stairs to what she knew was the largest office in the building. She slammed the door open and strode in, eyes landing on the person behind the desk.

"Jashin."

The man didn't bother looking up as he heard his name called. His blue hair hung down over his green eyes, focused as they are on the papers on the desk. His serious demeanor was at odds with his loud shirt, but that was something the woman had come to expect.

"Kami." His voice was carefully neutral.

"When is your next break?" There was a barely restrained anger in her voice, though surprisingly not directed at the man in front of her, Jashin.

He looked up, eyes narrowed slightly. "In a month and a half. I barely have time to talk right now. What do you need me for?"

"Take it early and I'll let you borrow one of my secretaries until the next one." She quickly snapped off. She was deadly serious, something that didn't escape Jashin's notice.

"What brought this on, and why do you want me to take an early break?" The pendant around his neck, identical to the ones his priests wear, glinted as he leaned back in his chair, arms folded and expression displaying mild irritation.

"Shinigami and I had a… disagreement." She sniffed.

"You two had a b**** fight, then?" Jashin raised an eyebrow. Kami bristled.

"Listen, I need to unwind. Loathe as I am to admit, you could probably help me out better with that than anyone I can actually stand."

"What are you suggesting?" He spun the pen around in his hand, staring at it rather than Kami.

She huffed, arms crossed again. "Whatever it is that you do with that Diamond girl. Just something to work off the anger and stress."

He looked up, judging her for a minute. "Alright. Just give me a second to get things settled for the next few hours and warn people about the person you're sending in. What are you sending in, anyway?"

"Nature spirit. You can choose the kind; you know what they tend to be good at."

Jashin stood up, walking out of the room and over to his secretary. "Hey, Ama-chan. Kami here has some issues to work out so I'm taking my break early. She's going to send us an extra secretary as compensation."

Amaterasu's grey eyes narrowed. "Will I be expected to train them?"

"No." Kami answered that herself. "Jashin will choose the kind, but otherwise I will provide you with the best."

Amaterasu nodded, a sharp motion. "You have twenty-four hours, Jashin-sama."

"Thanks, Ama-chan. Hold down the fort, I'll be back by morning." He backpedalled after a second. "Mind making me some cookies for when I get back?"

If you are questioning the legitimacy of a god making puppy-eyes, Jashin's doing it right now, and quite effectively at that.

"No, sir. I'll have some made." A smile flickered over her face for a half-second, fond and exasperated, like a mother to a son.

"Sweet!" Jashin punched the air.

Then he and Kami left for the night.

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan woke up alone in his room. There was a pounding in his head, despite the fact that he was pretty sure he hadn't drunk anything the night before. He stood up, feeling vaguely off-balance. He stumbled over to the bathroom, one hand on the side of the head. He flicked the light on.

Five minutes later, he was at Deidara's door. Half an hour later, there was pandemonium.

o.o.o.o.o

**Omake, as requested by ****ApostolicShadowNinjaGirl****, who got the hundredth review: Girl Deidara finds a kitten on a mission, brings it back, and tries to get Kisame to adopt it.**

Kisame let out a small shout (no, it was _not_ a squeak, thank you very much) as something small, grey, and fuzzy was thrust into his face by an overexcited pyromaniac.

"Deidara, stop!"

"Mou, Kisa-kuuuun!" She pouted, pulling the _thing_, whatever it was, back towards her chest, where he finally got a good enough look to tell what it was beyond small and furry.

It was a cat. A small, bedraggled, striped gray kitten looking up at him with huge orange eyes. Deidara held it by putting her hands under its armpits, holding it up with an expression that made her eyes similarly huge and imploring.

"Dei, why do you have a kitten?" Kisame sighed, putting a hand up to the bridge of his nose. Usually he could deal with Deidara, but she'd brought a _cat_ of all things into the base. He didn't have a problem with the animals originally, but they had a tendency to attack them.

"I found it on the mission, and it's cute, and I wanna keep it but Danna says no and I really wantitsocanyoupleaseadoptitsothatitcanstillbeinthe AkatsukibaseandI_don'thavetogiveitawayohprettyprettyprettyprettyple ase_?!" She was rushing her words by the end, her eyes even larger than before, tearing up and _make the cuteness stop_.

"Deidara, I can't. Cats hate me. Do you know what happened last time I tried to hold a cat?"

"Does it involve asparagus?"

"What? No. No, it doesn't. Why would you think that?" Kisame stared at her.

"Doesn't matter. C'mon, will you adopt the cat if it lets you hold it?" She didn't wait for an answer, just thrust the cat into his arms.

Kisame tensed up, waiting for the cat to attack. The cat did the same thing. They stared at each other.

Deidara would have had a bucket of popcorn, but eating with your hands after handling a wild animal just wasn't a good idea.

Kisame slowly raised one hand, and the cat flinched. Still going extremely slowly, he reached up to the cat's head and began to scratch it behind the ears like he'd heard cats liked to be scratched. It took a few minutes, but the cat finally began to relax. Then it began to purr, and tried to bury its head into his cloak.

Kisame didn't realize he was smiling until Deidara giggled. He glanced up and saw her watching them with an amused smile.

"So cute!" Then she paused. "So will you keep it?"

He nodded and returned his attention to the kitten.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Two things that I learned through conversations with ****Autumn-is-beautiful****, copy-and-pasted from the PM conversation:**

Sex is biological and physiological differences that define men and women (women have breasts capable of lactating, men have testicles, etc.). Gender is a social or cultural construct (roles, behaviors, activities, personality types, etc. that a society considers appropriate for one gender or another). Man and woman are sex categories. Masculine and feminine are gender categories.

**And, due to the fact that I've heard that the term hermaphrodite is considered a slur, I asked what the correct term was. I consider hermaphrodite a scientific term that I will still occasionally use in dialogue between science-minded characters (e.g. Sasori), but do not wish to offend anyone, so I'll use the term that I was told in most other cases.**

Usually people who are XXY will physically be mostly male, but often will have some female secondary sex characteristics (most commonly small breasts). It depends on the person, but probably the safest term to use would be intersex, meaning that biologically they do not have a complete set of characteristics of one sex without any characteristics of the opposite sex.

**Also, about Amaterasu… the idea for the following was inspired by a short conversation about Jashin and cookies with ****Simplicity Shitsuboku****. Keep in mind that the only thing these guys share in common with the gods in actual Japanese myth is their names.**

**Amaterasu: Jashin's secretary.**

**Susanoo: General/Commander in Chief of the demonic forces.**

**Tsukuyomi: Prison warden. (The only prison is in the demon realm).**

**Izanagi: Kami's secretary.**

**Izanami: General/Commander in Chief of the heavenly forces.**

**Shinigami has a smattering of dead souls that have proven themselves worthy in life, but not much more. NOT like ****Bleach****. Generally involves the souls that have been 'consumed,' like the four Hokage.**


	15. The Punishment is in the Bra

**A/N: About the usage of gender pronouns in this chapter… same rules as Deidara's. It just makes it less confusing for you guys, after the first hundred or so words.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_Wyoming, you could bomb the whole thing to the ground and no one would pick up on it for six weeks. And when they did, it would be because of the giant ash cloud."  
"How about Nebraska? Can we burn Nebraska?"_

_Parts of a conversation that basically just consisted of good-naturedly bashing other states_

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan stared at the mirror in his bathroom.

He brought his hands up in a handsign. "Kai."

Nothing. It wasn't a genjutsu.

He flew through a few other handsigns, twelve in all, and felt for the familiar pulse of chakra that he had only felt twice before on himself, and otherwise on only one other person.

Nothing. It wasn't… wait, that should have worked even if it wasn't the original reason for this change. What had happened?

He stared at the mirror again, turning to the side and back to admire his new body. "Well… it could be worse…"

His hands reached up and cupped the new bulges of flesh attached to _her_ chest. Hidan was, unsurprisingly, quite well-endowed up top, to the point where there was quite the hefty feel to her new breasts. And the weight, more importantly, meant that they were probably real.

Her hair was oddly cut, the same way the gender-change jutsu always left it. It looked nothing like the normal slicked back style, and was instead quite voluminous, with bangs reaching barely past her eyebrows and the rest flowing down to a little below the shoulders.

She reached over and snatched a towel off of the rack, wrapping it tightly around her chest. Hidan knew that her few shirts wouldn't fit on this new body. Deidara might have something to deal with the issue, maybe even turn her back to him if the only issue was that Hidan was getting the d*** jutsu wrong or something.

Hidan slowed down in both thought and body as she passed by Kakuzu's bed. If this wasn't just isolated to Hidan, then it might have affected the other members, which could probably be easily checked right now.

She crept closer to the bed, thankful for the fact that Kakuzu's blankets were both thin and usually pulled at least partway off during the night.

Under the shirt, there was a swell of something that was quite easy to identify. Smaller than Hidan's, quite small actually, but they were large enough to be seen through the shirt. The hair was longer than before as well, though not by much, and the features were slimmer and sharper.

Hidan bit back a curse and left the room. There had been all of five minutes since 'he' had walked into the bathroom and flicked on the light. She knocked on Deidara's door, and thirty-seven seconds later, the door opened to reveal Sasori.

"We've got trouble. Get Deidara. I have no f***ing clue how this happened, but it has and I can't turn it back." Hidan rattled off, gesturing to the rather obvious chest.

Sasori stared at the new woman in front of him, eyebrow raised. "I don't want to know." He turned and went back into the room. The door was still wide open, a clear invitation for her to come inside. She did, automatically turning to look at the only used bed in the room.

"Hidan?" Deidara was rubbing her eyes as she sat up. "Why are you a girl right now, un? Random sex changes are my shtick. Yours are things like murderous religious rampages and singing dirty songs at 3 AM to p*** off Kakuzu, un."

"I don't know. I woke up like this and the technique you use isn't f***ing working." Hidan crossed her arms, frowning at Deidara as the young woman pulled an arm up over her head. "And I checked Kakuzu's bed, before I left."

Deidara froze in the middle of stretching. "Kakuzu's a woman right now?"

Hidan nodded, arms still crossed in an uncomfortable position to hold the towel up.

"That's… Danna!" She called, turning over in the bed. "Check your video feeds of the bedrooms and see if anyone else got hit by whatever happened!"

Sasori glanced at the two, and then rolled his eyes and went over to a computer that was rather advanced for the shinobi world, though it would appear to be rather outdated on 21st century Earth.

"You have hidden cameras in all the rooms?" Hidan questioned, disturbed. "That's… really creepy."

"It's not paranoia if they're really out to get you(~!)." Sasori and Deidara said at the same time, Deidara in a mocking singsong tone, and Sasori with an exasperated monotone.

"Well?" Deidara hopped over to the computer, still rubbing a bit of sleep out of her eyes. "How's the rest of the building?"

"…See for yourself." Sasori moved back, letting them look at the video feed, near unmoving.

"The quality isn't very good, is it?" Hidan asked. She was leaning over to look at the screen better, with one hand on the desk and the other being used to hold up the towel.

"It's better than most security cameras." Deidara shrugged, looking over the small squares. "Yeah, looks like at least a few people… Tobi's for sure, considering the size of that chest, and Konan's breasts are gone, so I'm guessing she's gone male. Um… feed's too grainy to tell with Itachi, but I think Kisame shrank height-wise. Zetsu is… still half plant, but I can't tell more. Deva Path Pein is still male, but that's probably because the Paths are all corpses." She leaned back in the chair, playing with a lock of hair. "Real one might've been changed. Danna's a puppet, so I guess that's why he's still male, at least aesthetically."

"Can you change back?" Hidan asked, nudging her in the shoulder. Deidara frowned, and then flew through several handsigns.

Male Deidara was suddenly in the chair. "Yep. Here, I'll switch back to female to check some more and then see if I can change you back too."

While Deidara succeeded in switching back, Hidan was still stuck.

"We might have panicking members here to accuse you of this soon." Hidan pointed out, causing Deidara to frown.

"True…" She glanced over. "Take the towel off. I don't have a bra that's big enough for you, and I doubt that Konan does either, but I could wrap them for you. I won't bother tightening it enough to squash them down, but it'll be enough to provide minimum support and it'll cover you up enough that you won't have to worry about people seeing too much."

"Do I have to wear a shirt?"

Deidara laughed, high and light. "No, I guess not. Hey, can I dress you up? I won't do too much, I promise."

Hidan thought it over and shrugged. "Sure."

Five minutes later, Hidan was in a blue miniskirt, ballet flats, the chest wraps, her hitai-ate, and nothing else. She was walking back to her room to get her scythe and sling it across her back, planning to attach the cord to the belt loops on the skirt. Of course, this would be when Tobi ran into her.

"Ah! Hidan-san! Tobi doesn't know what's going on! Why is Tobi's chest big? Why does he have those things that Konan has?"

"I know you're not as much of an idiot as you pretend to be, Obito." Hidan cut the now-woman off as soon as she could.

Tobi's demeanor changed near-instantly. "Of course you do. What's going on? Is this Deidara's doing? …How do you know again?"

"Jashin told me, I told Deidara. Deidara doesn't know what's going on, and can't change me back to male. She and Sasori are unaffected. Don't know why Deidara isn't, but Sasori doesn't technically have genitals, so that's probably the reason for him. Deva Path wasn't changed, but Nagato probably was." Hidan crossed her arms, eyebrow quirked as she waited for Tobi, no, Obito to reply.

"…Are you sure that is all?"

"Yep. You can probably beg Dei for some clothes until this mess is fixed."

Obito stayed silent for several more minutes. "I see. I'll go talk to Deidara. Also, if you can figure out who I am from your darling _Jashin_, ask him about why this happened as well."

Hidan raised an eyebrow. "Alright… b****."

The two parted ways.

o.o.o.o.o

"Hold still!" Deidara reprimanded the woman in the orange mask. "It'll go wrong if you keep squirming!"

She tugged on the hair in the elastic, pulling it tight. "There. Your pigtails are done."

Tobi hopped to her feet, spinning around and giving Deidara a hug. "Thank you, sempai!"

'She' was currently in a long, light brown skirt and dark magenta turtleneck sweater. Boots of the same dark color were on her feet, no heels attached, and tan gloves covered her hands. The ensemble managed to do exactly what the old one had, especially when paired with the tights underneath: no skin was shown barring what little could be seen around the mask.

"You're welcome, Tobi-chan!" Deidara hugged her back. "Watch my skirt though, I don't want it getting wrinkled."

Tobi nodded vigorously, and then struck a thinking pose. "Sempai, where's your new kitty?"

"Maia? Probably in Kisame's room." She shrugged, and then jerked a little as the door slammed open.

Less than half a second later, she was up against the wall. She looked down into a pair of furious, spinning red eyes, and a further down still at the pale hand that had her shoved up to the wall in the first place. The voice that spoke was deceptively soft. "What have you done?"

"Put her down, Itachi. She knows less than I do, which isn't very much in the first place. No one knows what happened yet, though I'm working on it."

Deidara felt herself unceremoniously dropped to the ground as Itachi turned towards Sasori. "And?"

Deidara, ignored, massaged her throat and glared at Itachi above her. "B****." She muttered to herself.

"Well, the videos do have one discrepancy that I've noticed so far."

"Videos?" Itachi stared at him, and then past towards the monitor, Sharingan still active. "Are those our bedrooms?"

"Danna's paranoid." Deidara offered from her position still on the floor. "Though he says he isn't, since people really are out to get him."

"People in Akatsuki?" Itachi muttered.

"You'd be surprised at what Tobi would do to get me as his partner again. And Kakuzu has certain… intentions…" Deidara chirruped, giggling nastily at the end.

Itachi stared for about five seconds before just giving up on the subject. "Well, what was this discrepancy you mentioned?"

"Watch." Sasori wound the video back to 2:47:36, and pointed at the one indicating Hidan and Kakuzu's room. About fifteen seconds in, a small glowing spot appeared on the screen. It moved erratically across the screen, and appeared to drop glowing threads, web-like, across the beds.

"Is that a… butterfly?" Itachi squinted, despite the fact that her Sharingan was activated.

"I… think so?" Deidara was squinting as well, though her expression indicated that she was trying to remember something.

The glowing webbing settled over the two sleeping figures and faded, as if sinking in. The bodies on the beds changed to female while the butterfly left the room.

Suddenly, Deidara shot straight up. "S***!"

The others turned to look at her, Sasori stopping the feed. "What's wrong?"

"Sempai? What are you doing?"

"I can't believe it!" She pulled a folder out of her desk, opening it and flipping through the papers as fast as she could. "C'mon, c'mon…"

"Sasori, while we're waiting on Deidara, may we see the rest of the videos?" Itachi murmured.

Sasori shrugged, eyes fixed on Deidara. "It's pretty much just the same thing again in the other rooms."

Deidara had found the paper she was searching for. She skimmed through and found what she was looking for. She read the passage with wide eyes.

Her eyes squeezed shut and her head fell forward. "S***."

"Brat?" Sasori took a step forward. "What is it?"

"I have to go talk to Hidan. He… She is probably the only person that can confirm this." She left the room.

The three left in the room, Itachi, Sasori, and Tobi, stared at the open door.

"…Sempai left the paper on the desk." Tobi walked to the desk, a little unbalanced due to the weight on her chest. She picked the paper up and waved it at Itachi and Sasori.

"Let me see that." Sasori grabbed the page and read over it, his expression growing more irritated by the second.

"What does it say?" Itachi had turned her Sharingan off, and was looking over at Sasori, not bothering to try and read it.

Sasori held up the page and read it out loud.

_Dead and Demon Realms: all three gods take the forms they chose as their natural ones. Shinigami and Jashin stay in their offices in their own realms for the most part. Kami occasionally visits, but tensions are high among the three, so such occurrences are rare._

_Living Realm: due to the nature of this plane of existence, the gods generally take on guises while there. Shinigami gains the frightening visage that rumors have spread from Konoha as a result of his visits there. Jashin shrinks to human size, but remains otherwise the same, since he visits once every three months for his breaks. Kami, as it is her realm, often stays in her hidden city, but spends more time outside of it than the other two, as she is needed to maintain ecological balance (e.g. tsunami, earthquakes, season-changing, etc.). She suffuses her energy into the earth and travels like that, but sometimes, if she needs to interact with the world directly, she turns into a small butterfly (gold, glowing)._

There was a pause as the information sunk in, and then they all turned back to the grainy, black-and-white security footage.

"You don't think she actually believes that, do you?" Itachi asked warily.

"This is Deidara." Sasori said, as if that would explain everything.

"Sempai does what sempai wants to do." Tobi asserted.

"That's… great. That's great, Tobi." Sasori sighed, and then tilted his head to the side. "Is it just me, or do you hear very loud cursing very far away?"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara stalked into the room, dragging Hidan and Kakuzu in behind her. She pointed to the bed. "Sit. Everyone but Sasori no danna. I don't care how much older or more powerful you are."

Hidan and Tobi automatically sat down. Itachi waited several seconds, and then decided to just humor the blonde girl. Kakuzu stayed standing, arms crossed and dichromatic eyes staring at her in challenge.

"Listen," Deidara pointed at Kakuzu's chest, and looked her straight in the eye. "No matter the age or size, those things are going to bounce when you move at anything faster than a medium walk. Now, you can either minimize that by letting me get you some bras, or you can suffer the pain that comes with running down the stairs without any support."

Kakuzu held her gaze for several more seconds, and then slowly sat down on the bed.

"Great. Itachi, I'll take care of you first." She pulled out a tape measure. "Now take off your shirt, we have to measure."

Seven and a half minutes later, Itachi had somehow been coerced into clothing of Deidara's choosing—pretty, though Itachi would never admit it—which was a red v-neck, black leggings, and one of Deidara's many pairs of ballet flats. Kakuzu nearly threw a fit at seeing all the shoes, and then Deidara assured her that they were stolen. Almost all of them.

Kakuzu, unfortunately, was too tall for any of Deidara's clothing to fit without looking stupid. Instead, the bomber just tossed a few bras her way to try, and advised her to keep her cloak on for the time being.

"And I don't want to see that forehead protector on you. It's ugly." She then pulled some sort of webbed hairclip out of nowhere and pinned Kakuzu's hair up, pulling it tightly back. She tilted her head to the side. "Hm… you kinda look like the 'severe old widow' type, even with the mask. It suits you."

Then they heard Pein call them to the living room.

o.o.o.o.o

The Deva Path, still male, looked out over the assorted members. Zetsu was just standing there, doing nothing, thankfully. Konan was peeking in around the doorframe to check on when the coast was clear, while Kisame sat against the wall hugging Samehada tightly, possibly on the verge of tears, for a reason no one was quite clear on. Itachi was sitting on the couch, knees crossed and dango in mouth. Sasori was on the floor, leaning against the couch, with his hat pulled down over his eyes as if trying to block out the world. Most of the members were quiet.

Then came the ones that were causing pandemonium. All four of them. Hidan was fighting with Kakuzu, scythe in hand and (other) hand in a rather rude gesture. Kakuzu had her arms crossed and an angry glare that promised decapitation if Hidan didn't back down soon. The shouting had driven Tobi into a panic, and she was now running around the room, arms flailing. Deidara, having caught wind of those three, was nearly screaming in hysteric laughter by the wall. She was even propping herself up against it with one arm while the other curled across her stomach to try and relieve the tension caused by the diaphragm's spasms.

"Enough!" Pein called, getting the room to quiet down. Mostly. Deidara was still laughing, though she was apparently trying to stop if the hand she'd clapped over her mouth as she finally fell to the floor was any indication.

"Circle up." Dear Kami, he felt like he was talking to a group of children.

Well, she, considering the fact that, back in Nagato's personal rooms, an emaciated redheaded _woman_ was controlling the Deva Path.

"Now, do any of you know what happened? Or at least have any leads?" Pein asked as the other members finally circled up. Deidara and Hidan immediately raised their hands like schoolchildren.

"No, you two don't get to talk." Sasori automatically admonished them.

"Why aren't they allowed to speak?" Pein looked over at Sasori, who rolled his eyes.

"It has to do with Jashin."

"Ah, moving on then. Anyone else?" Pein ignored Deidara and Hidan as they pouted at him, trying to get him to relent. He raised an eyebrow over ringed eyes as Sasori stepped forward. "Well?"

"I have video footage that may be able to provide us with a lead."

"…Video footage?"

"Sasori no Danna's really paranoid and has cameras in everyone's rooms!" Deidara squealed and hid behind Hidan as Sasori shot her a death glare.

Pein, again, ignored them. "What was shown?"

"It was Kami! She and Jashin got drunk and—!"

o.o.o.o.o

Kami rubbed her temples. She had a headache, but apparently that was what she got for going so long without letting herself go loose a little. She ran through the memories of last night, landing on the memories of what she'd done to Akatsuki, in a fit of drunken irritation. She'd considered it a form of punishment for them. She mulled over it for a second, and decided to leave them be.

"Jashin can take care of it."

Then she remembered. There were two people they'd left unaffected. One didn't have genitals, and was, as a result, not bothered with. The other already changed sex so frequently that locking them into one was barely inconveniencing. They needed punishment as well…

A smirk made its way onto her face, even as she polished herself back up to prime condition.

Oh, yes.

o.o.o.o.o

"—And we have three months before he has a chance to come down and fix us up, because Kami is a b**** and won't care enough to change us back." Hidan finished up. Deidara nodded vigorously from next to him.

Pein sighed, trying to resist the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, knowing that it would do nothing. "That's… okay, that means nothing to me."

Deidara suddenly twitched. "Ow… my head hurts…"

She started scratching at her head, nose wrinkled up. Another shudder ran through her body, and one hand suddenly reached back to the joint between her back and skirt. "Ow, ow, ow…"

She glanced at Pein, still scratching. With a roll of his eyes, he nodded that she could leave.

She ran away, and they heard the bathroom door in the hall open, quickly followed by the sounds of zippers.

Sasori frowned and reached up to one ear. "Does anyone else hear that buzzing?"

"No." The reply was unanimous.

Sasori frowned. "I swear, I can hear something, but it's just…"

Hidan raised an eyebrow, and then suddenly grinned. "Wait, really?"

Sasori looked over at him, and then frowned. "Wait, it was clearer that time…"

Hidan's grin grew wider. "Oh, oh, oh! I know what's going on…"

Sasori glared at him, but then suddenly glanced around. "What? Who is saying that?"

"Sasori, are you sure you're feeling alright?" Pein asked, a little worried. If one of the only unaffected people suddenly got sick or something, it wouldn't be good.

Sasori's face was wiped clear of all emotion, but everyone in Akatsuki was already well aware of the fact that a blank Sasori meant a worried one.

"No…" Sasori's eyes narrowed, and he glared around the room, searching for the perpetrator of the oddly accurate words.

"Accurate?" He whispered, still turning to see where the impossible jutsu was coming from.

Too bad he didn't realize the truth. Sasori, listen now and hear well: this is the author speaking.

Welcome to the land of Breaking the Fourth Wall.

B****.

"Huh, she usually doesn't curse directly."

Sasori jumped, spinning around to see Hidan standing right behind him. "What?"

"The author. She usually makes other characters curse, never her directly. 'Course, she still censors the words regardless…"

"What do you mean, the author?" Sasori ground out.

"Exactly what Deidara and I have been saying all this time. Duh." Hidan rolled his eyes. "Let me guess, now you're even more paranoid than before?"

Yes, he is.

"Shut up." Sasori discretely removed the cap from the flamethrower in his palm.

"There's a flamethrower in your palm? Deidara never told me that. That's wicked, Sasori, seriously."

Sasori was spared further trouble, such as the rest of Akatsuki taking action, as many of them were planning on doing, when a sudden scream rent the air.

Deidara's scream.

Any panic on Deidara's behalf died a quick and sudden death at the next words to come from the hallway.

"Kyaaaaaaaa~! I've got kitty ears! And a tail! And Cute Little Fangs! They're so cute! I look absolutely adorable! Cute, cute, cute, cute, cute, cute, _CUUUUUUUTE!_"

Sasori cringed. _Why do I feel as though those words were underlined?_

Hidan snorted from next to him. "Because they were."

Deidara came running into the room, dressed all the way back up. Her eyes were gleaming and the grin on her face was filled with so much joy and cheer it was like Christmas season: near sickly sweet. So sweet it would give you diabetes. "Guys, look!"

Her screams hadn't lied. There was a pair of large ears on her head, the same color her hair was, but with white tips. Her normal, human ears were gone. Under the skirt, a tail could be seen swishing around, again white-tipped. Her eyes and face had remained mostly the same, but her eyeteeth were noticeably longer and sharper than before.

"I'm a catgirl. Nya~n!" She giggled. "Oh, and I heard the news! Congratulations, Danna! Now you suffer with me!"

o.o.o.o.o

Kami frowned. Maybe giving cat features to the insane pyro hadn't been such a good punishment after all.

She shrugged. Oh well, at least the puppet was suffering. She went back to work.

Jashin could handle it later.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Read the rant on reviews on my profile. It's a little anger-filled, but it relays my feelings on the matter of short reviews quite well. If you don't care to check, here's a (very) condensed synopsis:**

**SHORT REVIEWS ARE INSULTING.**

**Ja ne!**

**Phoenix**


	16. Little Doggy, Would You Like to Play?

**A/N: This is the first time, I think, that this is actually important. Pein = Deva Path = Yahiko's body as a proxy for Nagato. Nagato = Nagato, the original Rinnegan redhead. Yahiko = Nagato's best friend prior to said best friend's death. Just had to put that out there.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_There's, like, twenty miles of ocean!"  
"Yeah, I know, keep walking."_

_- A discussion concerning the Bataan Death March and the usual guy making jokes about how he got confused and temporarily thought that they had to march across the ocean to the other islands._

o.o.o.o.o

Pein sat at a desk pinching the bridge of his nose. The entire situation was a nightmare, honestly. Most of his subordinates weren't willing to go out at the moment, and to be honest, he didn't really feel comfortable allowing them to leave as the gender they shouldn't be. It would send out a message to the rest of the world that that Akatsuki was weak enough to get caught in a jutsu and not be able to reverse it.

There were actually only two people that had no problem whatsoever with the situation, but sending them out on a mission together was just asking for trouble. Hidan didn't care, and Deidara was overjoyed at her supposed suffering, but neither of them would do well on a mission while spurring each other on and without someone to keep them under control.

Sasori was possibly going insane, but eventually just quieted down and focused on ignoring the voices and trying to figure out the jutsu, which involved taking a lot of blood samples for some reason. Sasori and Deidara would probably have to shoulder the missions for now. Sasori was outwardly normal, after all, and after the first few initial outbursts stopped reacting to the 'authoress' at all. Deidara was odd enough that no one would find the newest additions to his or her anatomy strange at all. Considering that the Bingo Books from the last two years actually showed two pictures, one of each gender, and noted Deidara's propensity for switching sexes right in the middle of battles, it wouldn't surprise anyone on a battlefield for more than a few seconds.

"Konan." Shifting cloth was his answer, as the blue-haired woman, c***, _man_ stepped closer to the desk. "Please fetch Deidara and Sasori for me."

"Of course, Pein-sama." The Deva Path didn't react, but Nagato flinched back in her room. _Hearing the men as girls isn't too bad, but hearing __**Konan**__ talk like a man is too much. We have to figure this out and fix it soon._

"It's okay, Konan-chan! We heard it already!" Pein blinked in surprise, as Konan had only just stepped into the hallway, and Deidara's voice was too far away to have easily heard him asking for her.

"How?" Konan came back into the room, followed by Deidara, who was cheerily dragging Sasori behind her.

"Fourth Wall. See, Danna? I told you it was real, and you just got proof that it works!"

"It's just an elaborate genjutsu of some sort. Let go, brat." He jerked his arm out of her grip, turning his emotionless face back to Pein. "Leader?"

"Mission details. You haven't visibly changed, and no one would be surprised if Deidara had gotten those features deliberately. The others would not have willingly changed as they have, and going out as they are would notify people that we are incapable of reverting it. We cannot show any weakness." He threw the scroll, which Deidara caught.

"Sure thing, Pein-sama!" She tugged on Sasori's arm, pulling him away towards the door, not even bothering to stay for further orders. "C'mon, Danna!"

Konan and Pein watched them leave, silent.

"It's a little pathetic, but I really don't think anyone's going to notice that what happened to Deidara wasn't deliberate." Konan commented, leaning against Pein's chair.

"I know. That's the only reason I even considered sending her out." Pein glanced over. "Konan? Would you mind coming to the chamber?"

"The one with your real body? Of course I don't mind." Konan smiled, which still seemed sweet on _his_ face, since it was still a rather feminine face, even if it was undeniably male.

The blue haired man left the room, two thoughts on his mind: _How much worse is Nagato's illness going to get from this?_

_What a lovely belated birthday this turned out to be._

o.o.o.o.o.

Deidara glanced over at Sasori from his position on top of a telephone pole. Sasori was ensconced within Hiruko, on a nearby roof. Deidara glanced back at the ground, where the Konoha team was. He frowned a little and muttered to himself.

"Why do we keep on running into Konoha nin, un?"

A signal from Sasori got him jumping off the telephone pole, landing squarely next to Sasori. "What now? Pick a fight, ambush them, or try to stay unnoticed, un?"

"Too late to stay unnoticed. Did you recognize the woman?" Sasori pointed at the red-eyed Jounin leading the team.

"Yeah, she was there when we had to go take a scroll to Itachi or something, un. A genjutsu specialist, I think. They usually have pretty good sensing skills, right, un?" Deidara bit his lip when Sasori made Hiruko's head nod. "So… pick a fight, then?"

"Wait for them to come to us. How long is it until you switch?" Hiruko's tail lashed through the air, a clear sign that Sasori was preparing for the fight, possibly even anxious.

"I am _not_ anxious." He hissed, glaring at the sky as if he could actually see me.

"Ignore her, Danna." Deidara advised him. "About the switch, it's supposed to be tomorrow, but I could move it up if I had to. Why?"

Sasori, had he been outside, would have been smirking. "How sensitive are teenage boys to catgirls?"

Deidara stared at him, and then began to chuckle. "Oh, Sasori no Danna. I didn't expect you to be so crude. Then again, taking advantage of the enemy like that isn't so far out of your alley. Give me a minute or two."

He vanished with a puff of smoke signifying a shunshin, and Sasori settled in to wait. It didn't take more than a few seconds for the Konoha team to join him on the roof, varying emotions on their faces. The jounin with the red eyes had a look of cold professionalism on her eyes, while the young woman next to her, a Hyuuga by the looks of it, looked nervous. _As she should_, Sasori thought. The boy in the sunglasses didn't betray any emotion by virtue of most of his features being covered, as the other boy and the extremely large dog growled at him.

"How unprofessional." Sasori drawled, rolling Hiruko's head on its neck so that he could stare at the dog and the dog-boy in a manner that showed just how little he thought of them. "Not to mention extremely _stupid_. I am an S-ranked criminal, as is my partner, and have been on the run from various governments for some twenty years. What makes you think that _you_ are going to be sufficient to take me down?"

"What makes you think that we _can't?_" The boy with the tattooed cheeks asked, feral grin on his face. The large white dog next to him growled.

Sasori raised an eyebrow inside, though he didn't make Hiruko give any indication of the motion. At the very least, the boy's teacher seemed to understand how utterly imbecilic that comment had been, if her expression was anything to go by. "Did you or did you not hear the reasoning I just outlined for you? I believe I made it quite clear."

"Now, now, Danna, no need to be mean." Deidara suddenly dropped onto the roof from a place unknown. There was a lazy smirk on her face as she looked at the people around her. She giggled when she saw the dog boy, Kiba.

"Oh? An Inuzuka! And, if I'm not mistaken, the others are a Hyuuga and an… Aburame?" She smiled, knowing she was right. "How utterly adorable! So sweet of Konoha to send us such a diverse little team."

Her hands clapped together, and her tail lashed behind her even as her eyes squinted nearly shut, and her ears lay flat against her head.

"W-what?" Kiba stared. "The h*** are you?"

Deidara tilted her head to the side, amused smile dancing on her lips. "Wouldn't you just love to know?" She giggled softly, more of a chuckle, really. "Let's just say that no one in Akatsuki is very fond of Orochimaru, and won't hesitate to steal a little technique scroll or three from his henchmen when given the chance."

Kiba made a face, taking a step back. Hinata brought a hand up to her mouth, a little horrified that anyone would use a technique of Orochimaru's willingly without working for him directly. Shino made no move, but that's because he's Shino; he's awesome like that. Kurenai stepped forward, hands twitching at her sides as though ready to fly up at any moment to form the seals for a technique.

"Why are you here?" Kurenai's voice was soft, betraying no thought or emotion. "There is nothing in this town worthy of note."

"So you think!" Deidara laughed, even as she ducked an annoyed swipe of Hiruko's tail. "Nah, we're just passing on through, running some errands. Then again, there must be something rather special in this town if you're here, nya~?"

Kurenai's eyes narrowed, "No, we are of the same position."

"We could simply leave without a fight." Sasori suggested. "Of course, I don't have a Hyuuga in my puppet collection yet. And you seem to have a Main House one with you. Such a lovely young specimen you'd make."

Kiba and Akamaru were growling loudly and in tandem now. Deidara glanced over, and something about them brought a grin to her face. "Oh? Is that your dear little attempt at intimidating little old me? No, no, don't stop. It's cute." (1)

You're stalling!

Sasori twitched, and while Hiruko didn't react, Sasori inside was glaring up at the ceiling again. Deidara simply let her smirk grow, even as she sauntered over to Kiba. The boy tried to back away, but found himself stuck. He looked down at his feet, only to see that his legs were wrapped in clay centipedes.

"They're very sweet, aren't they? They're clay, of course, not very good for, nya, conversation or anything, but they make for some lovely explosions." She'd stopped at that point, as Akamaru stepped in front of his partner and growled at her. "Hey, Sasori no Danna?"

Akamaru found himself almost dancing away as he was forced to move by the chakra strings now attached to his body. Deidara chuckled, giggled, knowing that the other members of this little team from Konoha were being similarly controlled, even with a little something pulling their jaws shut. "Nya, you didn't actually think we were that weak, did you? We're S-rank for a _reason_, sweet cheeks."

She reached out and pinched one of said cheeks, and then brushed her own against Kiba's shoulder, making sure to let out a loud purr as she did. Her tail lashed a little against his legs, and she made sure that the white fur at the tip of her ear brushed against the sensitive skin on his face or neck as she passed by.

"Still, it's not like no one on your team could see reason. Bug boy here certainly could. Shino, right?" She smiled in a manner almost fond as he twitched. "Oh? Is something wrong? Is it that I knew your name? That does tend to make people rather paranoid. Not as paranoid as Danna, though. Let's see…"

She drifted away, over to Hinata. "Such a sweet girl you are. I wonder, is there anything these little voices are willing to tell me about you?" She swirled her hand in the air. "Or is the author going to be stingy?"

Oh, you're asking me? Alright. Hm… her little sister's birthday is on March twenty seventh, only a few weeks away, really. Does that work?

"Helpful." Deidara purred. "Would you like to know what the authoress told me? You would? Alright! It's nice to see that you're being so cooperative. Just tell your little sister happy birthday for me when it comes around in a few weeks."

The look on Hinata's face was one of horror. How could…?

"Didn't you hear me the first time?" Deidara chuckled. "I was _given_ the information by the authoress. All I had to do was ask."

A high pitched giggle escaped her as she darted over to Kurenai, running a finger along the older woman's shoulders. "You know what the best part of this whole little shindig is? I'm not even gonna _kill_ any of you!"

Her head snapped back over to Kurenai. "Well, well, well… would you look at that. I didn't know there were any genjutsu specialists good enough to cast without hand signs after 'Tachi-kun left. Impressive… but I've been training my eye to be capable of ignoring even an illusion cast by a Mangekyo Sharingan. So, sorry, but you really ended up with a bad opponent for your particular skill set." A pulse of chakra disrupted Kurenai's illusion, but was quickly followed up by several more. "Layered? And at least six different layers, too… d***, you're good."

Deidara's head lolled to the side again, smirking at the red-eyed woman. "Almost makes me want you dead, but I stand by what I said. I'm not going to kill any of you."

A quick sprint, barely a second, and a jump, and Deidara was suddenly sitting on Akamaru's shoulders, leaning over to rest her head and arms on the large dog's head. "Not a single one of ya!"

"We're not?" Sasori reserved the right to be confused. Oh, and to send a quick glare at me. And also you, dear readers.

"No… they're not really worth it… besides, they have an Inuzuka! All canine and stuff. I want people to spread the rumors, and someone that's got this kind of dog connection is going to be especially energetic about telling everyone about _these_." She pawed at one ear, and even mewled a little. A loud laugh, and she bounded away from the Konoha nin and back to Sasori. She waved at them, sending a wink over her shoulder. "Buh-bye, big boy. Just take this as a warning for why you shouldn't mess with Akatsuki. We _will_ kick your a**, every d*** time."

Then they were gone, Sasori's chakra strings finally letting them go.

Kiba fell to his knees and drove a fist into the ground. "What the h***?"

"It appears we overestimated ourselves." Even Shino seemed uncertain.

"They knew about Hanabi. How… why would they know something like that? What reason do they have for something like that?" Hinata had every reason to panic.

"Let's just go back to Konoha." Kurenai muttered, turning in the direction of their home village. The encounter had put several things into perspective into, not the least that Akatsuki was probably more of a threat than they'd assumed. The blonde, they'd expected, was the weakest of them, being that all records Iwa released showed that this 'Deidara' was currently the youngest known member of Akatsuki. But to be able to throw off so many genjutsu, detect them so easily, showed that the girl was more than capable of handling herself. With her arrogant manner… no, she wasn't arrogant, she was confident. Arrogance was having too much unwarranted pride. Confidence was knowing that your pride was warranted, and that was what the blonde had had. Her skills with explosive were almost definitely as good as Kurenai had heard.

And that was very, very bad for Konoha and its allies.

o.o.o.o.o

**(1) Inspired by a DeviantArt picture, by lunatowner, called ****flouncy villainry****.**

**A/N: This chapter was meant to remind you of one fact: Deidara is just as evil as anyone else in Akatsuki, or even the Naruto universe in general, and is **_**very**_ **capable of being extremely creepy. Sure, she didn't kill anyone… but in a situation like this, even hurting someone wasn't necessary. Psychological warfare was all she needed.**

**By the way! Go check out the picture I referenced. It's funny, as is much of lunatowner's Naruto-based gallery.**


	17. Exiled from the Bedroom

"_There was __**not**__ a kamikaze fighter who flew five missions."_

_My history teacher_

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara pouted as Hidan, still female, pulled him onto her lap. They were in the living room of the Akatsuki base, on the couch, and supposedly watching television. "I can't believe you're still taller than me, un…"

"You do know that you're pretty short for a guy, right? You're even shorter than most girls when you're male." Hidan chuckled, tightening her arms around the male blond in her lap. Said blond turned around in his 'seat,' and pouted at his, at the moment, girlfriend.

"B*****." He muttered, though his pout was gone a second later as he nuzzled his face into the crook of Hidan's neck. "Mm, you're softer like this, un. I like it."

"Or maybe you just like me." Hidan reached up with one hand and grabbed Deidara's ponytail. "I can think of someplace else where your head could be right now…"

"Pervert, un." Deidara muttered, just before Hidan pulled his head a little further down. He chuckled, tilting his head just so in order to not be suffocated by the mounds of flesh his head was currently between. He pushed away, looking into magenta eyes with a blush on his half-smiling, half-smirking face, below the mussed blond hair. Hidan smirked back, pulling Deidara tighter against her. The two quickly descended into a tickle fight, which continued for several minutes.

"Do you two think you could move somewhere else?"

Deidara glanced up at Kisame, who was sitting in the nearby armchair, frowning at them. He smirked. "I suppose… Hidan, un? What do you think?"

Hidan grinned. "My room or yours?"

Deidara raised an eyebrow, grabbing Hidan's wrist and dragging him out of the room. "Definitely yours."

Kisame rolled her eyes, now much larger than as a male and a dark yellow color. The size of her eyes were probably compensating for her drastic change in height, as she was now nearly as short as Deidara, and small chest. Her hair was no longer spiked, and when she tried to use a gel to do it, she found that it was too long to style effectively. Any attempts to cut the hair to make it easier to manage were met with complete futility.

Deidara pulled Hidan into the room, one foot absentmindedly kicking the door shut. He grinned as he shoved the near-albino woman against a wall. "Well?"

"Just hurry up and f*** me already." Hidan grinned. Her wrists were up above her head, and she could feel a slight indent of teeth from the tanned hand holding them there.

"Oh? In a hurry, are we?" Deidara reached up, smirking, and ran a thumb across his lover's cheek. "Let me guess… you just can't wait for me to 'sheath myself up to the hilt inside you,' un?"

Hidan's eyes narrowed, "What are you playing at?"

"Or maybe," He stood a little taller, on his tip-toes, and licked the shell of her ear, earning a shudder. "You want me to put my free hand somewhere special, and let a spare tongue 'explore your velvet folds'?"

Said spare hand came up and grabbed her neck, holding it firmly but not so much as to hurt… yet.

"Then again, you're a masochist, so maybe you'd rather I treat you 'like an Amazonian princess, loving but rough in a manner you've never imagined'?" The teeth in Deidara's palm bit down on Hidan's neck, and the mouth began to suck, leaving behind a purple bruise, which slowly began to heal up.

Hidan's breath was coming faster, harsher now, as she stared down at _her_ blond. "Dei, shut up, stop quoting bad lemons, and just—"

"Just what?" A kunai was poised beneath her collarbone, and Deidara's grin grew as he dragged it down, lust now present in his eyes as well. The straps covering Hidan's chest fell away as the kunai cut and ripped them. "Just… f*** you into the ground until you can't possibly move anymore, un?"

"_Yes_, d***it!" Hidan ground out, and Deidara chuckled as he stared up at her through one half-lidded eye.

"Well, I've got no trouble with _that_, un."

o.o.o.o.o

Kakuzu came up to the door to 'her' room, raising a hand to open the door, but stopped as she heard certain noises. Noises that she hadn't heard just seconds before, focused as she had been on the sheaf of paper in her hands.

There were moans coming from the room, groans and shifting cloth, labored breathing and pleasured whines.

Couldn't they try using some _other_ room for once?

She growled to herself as she stalked off, and slammed the door to the artists' room open.

Sasori looked up, confusion nowhere to be seen. He had heard everything, knew exactly what was going on, and his cameras were very much disabled in that room for the moment. "They've taken over your room again."

"Obviously."

"You're free to work here for the time being." Sasori waved a hand dismissively and turned back to his work table.

"Much obliged." Kakuzu remarked sarcastically.

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi didn't know why, particularly, but her illness seemed to have… stalled out, for lack of a better phrase. It wasn't quite gone, but it seemed to be receding, if only slightly. Like it had backed off for a short moment, the disease was giving her time to rest, to put off Itachi's eventual death by… _his_ brother's hand. At least, that was what she had thought.

There had been a sudden pain adding to whatever the disease was still inflicting on her, starting just last night. It was annoying at first, but now it was actually taking conscious thought to prevent herself from grabbing at her midsection. It wasn't even the feeling of indigestion, just… a sharp, panging ache that wouldn't go away, only fade in and out and back in again.

She was at the dinner table, which was as awkward as it had been since the impromptu gender change that had occurred barely a week ago, when Sasori walked in and grabbed Deidara's shoulder. He was staring right at Itachi.

"Tell me that doesn't mean what I think it means." Itachi had no clue what he was talking about, but Deidara and Hidan apparently figured out what happened, at least peripherally. They both glanced at the ceiling, mouthing words.

Deidara appeared to be the first to figure it out. "Oh. I didn't expect for it to happen for another three weeks or so."

"What to happen?" Pein asked from the head of the table.

Deidara grinned. "Can't you guess? Itachi-chan's the first of you all to get _that_. But don't worry. I'm sure you'll all be joining her soon."

"Except Kakuzu." Hidan interjected.

Deidara nodded in agreement. "Except Kakuzu, she's too old."

"Oh no, you mean…" Konan brought a hand up to his mouth.

"PMS is a total b****, you know?"


	18. Why Deidara Should Never Teach Sex Ed

"_So now there are all these dirty bombs just lying around Eastern Europe, with mummified chickens inside. If you've ever wondered how KFC gets its food, that's how. They just send some guy to go tramping around, like, Europe, and just dig up all these WWII bombs."_

_The usual guy. The first line, about the bombs and chickens, is actually true. The part about KFC is not. If you want to hear WHY these bombs had chickens inside in the first place, go right ahead and ask. It's weird._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Alright, here goes:**

**WARNING: Deidara goes into excruciating detail while describing the actions of a woman's body after childbirth and it's not very pretty.**

o.o.o.o.o

Itachi blinked. "What?"

Deidara rolled her visible eye, and then focused on the Uchiha again, pointing at her. "PMS. Pre-menstrual Syndrome. You know, the week before a girl gets her period, when she's probably going to be really cranky, have a craving for chocolate, and experience terrible abdominal pains."

Deidara had begun to lean over the table, coming closer to Itachi until the older woman's eyes were crossed in an attempt to keep looking at the finger that was being shoved into her face.

"Dei," Hidan muttered, grabbing a snatch of fabric from Deidara's dress and pulling her back down into her seat. The blonde rolled her eyes, but stayed where she was. Her gaze began to wander the table, and then she tilted her head to the side that, unlike her normal coquettish angle, simply conveyed innocent curiosity.

"How much do you guys actually know about taking care of your bodies during that time?" Was that a hint of worry in her tone?

Uncomfortable looks were on nearly every face on the table. Deidara frowned. "Right… well, I guess you'll have to go through girls' Sex Ed. I'll go get some stuff to explain better, you guys go sit in the living room. Konan, Pein, and Sasori are exempt, and Kakuzu… it's not necessary, but I'd recommend coming anyway."

She practically skipped out of the room, and Hidan watched her leave. She turned her own purple gaze around the room, noticing a few looks that seemed to be dreading what was coming. "So…"

"Hey, Danna!" Deidara's shout carried down easily. "Where are the big papers? And the markers?"

Hidan thought she heard a whimper, but that may have been just a figment of her imagination.

o.o.o.o.o

"…and then they deliver the afterbirth, which is pretty much just the placenta, and the new mother spends at least another month dealing with lochia, which is vaginal discharge and _kind of_ like a really heavy period. The first couple of days are fairly sterile and are red in color due to blood, called lochia rubra, but afterwards come the lochia serosa and lochia alba, which are pinkish and white or yellow respectively, and during which it is possible for diseases like E. coli to set in."

Deidara grinned at her horrified audience and flipped the last page off of the children's easel. Her ears twitched a little. "And that is why I'm suggesting that you try not to experiment with your new forms unless you use the forms of protection I outlined earlier, as you don't have the option of just switching back to male the morning after like I do and negating any chance of pregnancy even starting, since it can't happen without a womb, and it takes three to five days for conception to actually occur, so I don't feel like a b****** for ending a fetus' life since it was just a bunch of semen and an egg or two that hadn't been fertilized yet anyway."

She took a deep breath after ending the run-on sentence and beamed at her audience again. "Any questions?"

A number of heads shook slowly, not taking their eyes off of the now empty easel. Hidan actually leaned forward, and the small squeaking noise from her chair caused Deidara's ears to swivel towards her before her head followed.

"So… is childbirth _more_ or _less_ painful than being stabbed through the heart and/or having my head cut off?"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara laughed into her pillow, trying to stifle her breath enough to just _stop_ it already. Hidan sat down next to her, smirking.

"I'm pretty sure you just traumatized them all. You only really needed to talk about menstruation, pads, and tampons. Probably mentioning menopause for Kakuzu's sake, but that's about all they really needed to hear."

"Well, _yeah_. But where's the fun in that?" Deidara finally pulled her head out of the pillow flopping over onto her back and laying an arm—and a tail—across her abdomen. Her face was still a little flushed from all the laughter, and her smile was a little _too_ happy as she stared up at Hidan. She'd had far too much fun torturing her comrades with information that they probably didn't really need.

"You're _kind of_ a b****."

"I'm an S-rank nukenin, and Akatsuki. It's _kind of_ a given." She finally sat up all the way, but quickly shifted herself over to lay her head on Hidan's shoulder and wrap her arms around the taller woman's waist. "Mm… you smell nice."

Magenta eyes rolled as the blonde continued to nuzzle into Hidan's neck. Hidan brought up a hand and scratched her behind the ears, drawing out a low, content purr from her, at the moment, girlfriend. "Thanks. It's the blood, sweat, tears, and pleas for mercy of a thousand sacrifices to Jashin-sama."

"I guess sacrifices smell nice, then." She giggled, and then stood up and grabbed Hidan's hand, pulling the near-albino along behind her. "C'mon, let's go terrorize random shinobi that walk through the nearby forest with knowledge that we should in no way be aware of!"

Hidan blinked. "That was oddly specific, but…" A grin spread across her face, "Okay, but only if I can bring my scythe along for the terrorization too!"

"Woohoo!"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara wasted no effort in attempting kindness as he grabbed and shoved Itachi into a seat on the couch. He himself took up a place in the armchair across from said couch. He crossed his arms. His tail actually swished back and forth a few times in an attempt to lay in a manner that wasn't uncomfortable, and finally hung somewhat awkwardly off to the side. His ears were pricked attentively.

"Itachi, un."

"Deidara."

They continued to stare. Deidara sat unblinking, while Itachi showed no sign of just how confused she was. No one else was in the room.

Deidara spoke first. "Do you know why I wanted to talk to you, un?"

"No."

The stared for another twenty or so seconds. Deidara's impatience won out over his stubbornness in the end. He sighed and brought a hand up to his face.

"Alright, I'll be honest here, un. I don't hate you as much as I used to. I really wish I could, but, h***, I can barely bring up the energy to even mildly dislike you anymore, un." His eye had never left Itachi's gaze.

"I thought as much. However, if we could proceed to the actual point of this discussion?" Itachi gestured with one hand.

Deidara scoffed. "You don't get it, do you? I've actually started _caring_ about you, un. So…"

His arms unfolded, his body leaning forward, and a fist smashed down onto the coffee table. One blue eye was glaring at Itachi, and ears lay flat against blond hair. "Why the_ h***_ haven't you taken my advice?"

"What?" Itachi's tone was calm. Too calm for Deidara's actions, but that was how Itachi functioned within Akatsuki. Emotion was hidden, always.

"Well, for one thing, you haven't taken any painkillers for the cramps, un. And," He stopped any protest from Itachi, "I know that yours are worse than most women's."

"I can handle a spot of pain." Itachi retorted smoothly. "It is far less pain than injuries I have sustained before."

"So?" Deidara stared at her like she'd grown a second head. "What's the point, un? You can get rid of the pain easily, but you're suffering through it anyway. There is literally no reason for that, un."

"It is—"

Deidara cut her off. "No, no. Let me guess, un. It has something to do with the fact that you're dying from that illness you've had the past couple of years, un."

Itachi froze. Red and black eyes spun into action, trained on the boy, man, whatever in front of her. "How do you know that?"

Deidara raised an eyebrow. One ear twitched. "Same way I know that Tobi isn't who he says he is. Same way I know that Hidan has a greater responsibility than anyone else in Akatsuki. Same way I know that those special eyes of yours are slowly making you blind. Jashin tells Hidan, Hidan tells me."

Itachi glared. "Who else knows?"

Deidara shrugged. "Danna figured it out, I think. Pein knows, so Konan probably does too. Hidan's the one that told me in the first place, and whoever you told, which probably means Tobi and maybe Kisame. Tobi might've told Zetsu, but… meh." He shrugged again.

"That is—"

"You're being noisy." Deidara smirked over at Itachi. The smirk vanished a second later though, and his face regained the earlier grave demeanor. "I'm serious, here. At least take my advice on the painkillers, if you're not going to listen to me on anything about the disease. I still think you should go talk to Danna and Kakuzu, but obviously you're going to be even more stubborn than I am on that count."

He got up and left without a glance back, tail swishing in barely disguised irritation.

Itachi didn't move for another half hour.

o.o.o.o.o

**Omake for reviewer number 150, ****Trunk'sfallenAngel****.**

**Prompt: How about Tobi pestering Itachi because he can't find Deidara?**

**This omake takes place prior to the organization-wide gender switch.**

Tobi was having a mild panic attack. It wasn't a major panic attack, as those inevitably lead to rampaging giant statues and people who should be dead rising from the grave to talk him through his problems the way they _promised to_ after scaring him half to death in an underground hole and helping him work through the pain and grief of Rin's death. No, it was just a minor panic attack.

That meant that he was currently running through the base, waving his arms like a human hummingbird, screaming like a maniac, and trying to find someone willing to answer the question that caused his panic attack in the first place.

"Itachi-san!" He ran to the younger Uchiha and flung his arms around him. Itachi froze, not quite sure what to do. He obviously wanted Tobi to _get the h*** off right now, d*** it_, but he also didn't want to anger the man he thought of as Madara.

"What?" So best just to get it over with as quickly as he possibly could.

"Tobi can't find Deidara-sempai! Sempai is gone and Tobi can't find him!" Tobi clawed at Itachi's cloak, causing the young man to nearly try to brush him off in the manner that one would try to brush of a strange and slimy creature with a large number of tentacles, or perhaps a naked mole rat with numerous large green warts, or a particularly large and hideous slug, or, as in this case, a man with an orange mask and the mind and personality of a five-year-old. He acted almost like a puppy…

"I don't know of Deidara's whereabouts at the moment. Perhaps Sasori will?"

Tobi nodded, sniffling, and ran off towards the puppet master's room. Itachi frowned to himself. There was no one in the vicinity, so why had Tobi decided to act in his good boy guise?

…Perhaps the man really did enjoy f***ing with their heads just as much as Deidara did.

It took Tobi less than a minute and a half to come back and once more launch himself at Itachi.

"Sasori-sama isn't there either!" Itachi could have sworn that drool and snot, along with possibly bile and similarly disgusting bodily fluids, were dripping out from beneath the swirling mask and down onto his cloak, soaking in and making it smell absolutely vile.

"Then perhaps they are on a mission?"

"No! Tobi already checked! Sempai wasn't supposed to go on any missions!" The man was once more waving his hands wildly, only stopping when one arm managed to smack Kakuzu in the chest as he walked into the room.

A silent stare-off occurred between the two ninja, one of whom was positively ancient and the other of whom acted like a demented parakeet on a large amount of alcohol, sugar, crack, or similar dangerously stimulating substance.

"Ah!" Tobi finally screamed, throwing his hands up into the air. "Tobi is sorry, Kakuzu-san! Tobi was just panicking because he couldn't find Deidara-sempai!"

"He's on a date with Hidan." Kakuzu continued to stare at him.

"…Oh."

"Now I'm going to kill you." Kakuzu moved forward, threads coming out to pursue vengeance wrought in anger for the hand that had smacked him a bare minute earlier.

"No, don't kill Tobi!" The man ran off.

Itachi shook his head. Surrealism was a part of day-to-day life in Akatsuki after all. It was just something he tried to repress.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara glanced at the sky. "You hear that, un?"

"Nah, wasn't paying attention. What happened?"

"It boils down to: Tobi p***ed off Itachi, panicked about me, and now Kakuzu is trying to kill him, un."

"Sweet."

"Yep."


	19. Hit Me, Give Me All You've Got

**A/N: This chapter was not a result of a reader suggestion. It was a result of a very special nail. Here's how it goes:**

**If Deidara hadn't started the game, he and Hidan wouldn't be a couple, or even particularly close friends.**

**If they weren't a couple, or even particularly close friends, they would not have gone drinking.**

**If they hadn't gone to a bur they would not have run into enemies.**

**If Deidara had not stolen Orochimaru's technique, a large number of things would not have happened, but the main thing is that they would not culminate in an argument between Kami and Shinigami over Orochimaru and Kabuto's usage of the dead.**

**If Kami and Shinigami hadn't fought, Kami and Jashin would not have gone drinking, and Kami would not have gone and 'punished' the Akatsuki.**

**(THE REST IS AT THE BOTTOM)**

o.o.o.o.o

"_They tried to train these cats to spy on the Soviets. They spent all this money on it, and they trained them, and they put these battery-powered [surveillance equipment] on them. Then they sent the cat out to where they thought the Soviets were, and on the very first mission, it got run over by a car. To this day, the names of the people who worked on this project are classified because it was such an embarrassment. Even after the Declassification Act of [year], it's still censored."_

_- The usual guy. The things in the brackets are the bits that I forgot by the time I got around to typing it out._

o.o.o.o.o

"So…" Deidara rolled over onto his stomach and looked up at Hidan through his lashes. "You wanna go out?"

"Where?" Hidan didn't look up from where she was cleaning and sharpening her scythe.

"I don't know… a bar? A pub? I don't really feel like clubbing, but I wanna go out and maybe have a drink or two." He shrugged.

"Maybe in the afternoon."

And that was the conversation that brought them here. Leaving the bar. Wearing their Akatsuki cloaks. Face to face with the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and Jiraiya of the Densetsu no Sannin. Or in the case of the brat and Hidan, face to chest.

Remember, Hidan still walked around with chest wraps, no shirt, and an open cloak.

Jiraiya looked somewhere between jealous and horrified. He was twitching again.

The blond brat finally stumbled back into his chair, face red and gasping. He'd only been standing up from his chair, and hadn't notice that Hidan was right on his way past, and ended up shoving his face into said albino's breasts as he stood up.

Hidan raised an eyebrow, but was distracted as Deidara took a step forward and leered at the kid. "Hey brat, un. Guess what? This is Hidan. Hidan is _mine_, un. Stay the h*** away."

He straightened back up and turned to the Sannin, who seemed to be readying an attack, or at least to drag the group outside for the fight. "Ya here me, un? Mine." He wrapped his arms around Hidan's waist.

"You do realize it was an accident, right?" Hidan muttered, reaching one hand up to rub the area behind Deidara's ears. The purring came, but was quickly cut off as Deidara realized what his 'girlfriend' was doing, and glared up at her. "What? You need to calm down. I seriously doubt the kid was looking to shove his face into the boobs of an Akatsuki member. Especially since I'm not technically supposed to be a woman."

Deidara stared at Hidan for a moment, a look flickering across her face that seemed to say: _You didn't…_

He turned back to the two Konoha ninja. It was a little sad, he mused, just how easily he could kill the brain cells of these two. Jiraiya, for instance, looked absolutely horrified. The Kyuubi Jinchuuriki looked… interested?

"What're you lookin' at?"

"Is it a real change?" He seemed to be trying very hard at something. Maybe he was just trying to ignore the fact that Deidara was a purportedly insane nukenin. Then again, he'd heard something from Kisame about the kid crying for the deaths of a pair of nukenin that tried to kill him in Wave, so that wasn't necessarily right.

"What?"

"I mean," He hurried to explain, "I have my Oiroke no Jutsu, which is really just a special henge that makes me look like a sexy woman to distract the guys I'm fighting, or even take them out if they're pervy enough. But the way you're talking about it—"

"Makes it sound like it's a real change?" Deidara raised a brow, but ended up laughing after a few seconds. "Yeah, I stole a scroll off of one of Orochimaru's henchmen. It's technically considered a medical technique, but you can power through that if you've got enough chakra, which isn't really an option for most medical techniques. Hidan, though, is the result of a p***ed off goddess that had a little too much to drink. So are all the other poor schmucks that got stuck like this."

"Others?" The whiskered blond asked, and then started to look worried.

"It doesn't matter kid." Hidan rolled his eyes, but Deidara caught the glint of metal. Apparently, so did Jiraiya, because he seemed to come out of his stupor.

Deidara sighed as Hidan's scythe came out of its scroll and the blades came to rest against the Jinchuuriki's neck. "Because you're a _target_, you know? We've got to—"

And that was then the toad sage shoved a spinning ball of chakra into the immortal's side. Deidara face-palmed.

He sighed and raised his voice. "OI! CIVILIANS! GET THE F*** OUTTA HERE IF YOU WANNA LIVE! HIGH LEVEL NINJA BATTLE IN PROGRESS! YA HEAR ME, YA LITTLE S***S?!"

Apparently, if the panicked screams and scrambling were any indication, they did.

The Kyuubi brat looked ready to run outside and fight against Hidan with his teacher. Deidara groaned inwardly. There was no way to pull this off. He doubted that even Pein would be able to take down Jiraiya easily… he needed backup. He reached for his ring, ready to send a message, but was cut off as a swirling ball of chakra, like the one that hit Hidan earlier, came at him. He dodged, but quickly realized that he wouldn't have much of a chance to send a message if the angry kid that actually looked kind of like him was going to try that hard to get a kill.

_I really hope that Danna was paying attention. I might actually be able to answer a message on the rings, even if I can't send one._

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori sat working in his workshop. Because a workshop is designed for work, as the name implies.

"Obviously."

You replied! You've acknowledged me!

Silence.

You aren't very fun.

Sasori just kept on working.

Sigh. Did you even pay attention to what just happened?

Sasori ignored the voice coming through the fourth wall.

I'll take that as a yes. Seriously, you could at least check. It couldn't _hurt_, after all.

"As far as I know, I'll be interrupting them in the middle of their lovemaking."

…At least I got you to talk…

Call.

"No."

I'll start singing. I'm serious, I'll sing the most ridiculously childish and annoying songs I can think of.

"I doubt that."

I can cause you to feel pain.

…

"You're bluffing."

And then he felt a twinge in his chest, in his heart compartment. It barely felt like anything, like a needle just poised on the skin, not even pressing in… but it was there.

You think I'm _bluffing?_ I know your every thought, _puppet_. Go ahead. Make the call. Or don't. I can always use it as a chance to amuse myself. And trust me; I find your pain _excruciatingly_ funny.

Sasori glared at the ceiling for several seconds, but relented. He made the hand signs, channeled chakra into the ring…

"_Brat?"_

A voice crackled through, a bare thought. _"Hey danna… I need backup. Soon."_

S***.

o.o.o.o.o

"Pein!"

Sasori slammed the doors open, charging into the room that the Deva Path used as an office.

"Sasori, you will show respect."

"I just got a call from the brat. He and Hidan are caught up in a fight with Jiraiya of the Sannin and the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki."

"…Jiraiya?"

"He apparently took offense to Hidan holding a scythe to his student's neck."

Pein thought for several moments. "Get Tobi and Itachi. Tobi will teleport you there, Itachi can keep himse… herself and Tobi under a strong enough genjutsu to keep people from breaking it and showing what happened to the Akatsuki."

Sasori nodded, turned, and ran.

o.o.o.o.o

_Holy s***! What is this guy?!_

Deidara didn't have too much trouble with the Kyuubi kid. The genin had a lot of chakra, but not much control, and only a few nonstandard techniques at his disposal. Deidara had taken to the skies as soon as he could, using the height to his advantage and going high enough to hopefully avoid any attacks from the kid with the whiskers.

"Deidara! Sh- Call for backup!"

"Already did, un!" Deidara swerved to avoid a handful of exploding kunai. He bit his lip—one of his hands did the same—and seriously hoped that _someone_ would be showing up soon. It would be enough to just get Hidan out of the way, but he could risk that. The only way to negate his bombs was Raiton chakra, which wasn't a known element for either of the two he was fighting. He wasn't even sure if the Kyuubi brat _had_ an element, and Jiraiya was known for his Doton and Katon. Unfortunately, Hidan didn't have Raiton either, which meant that Deidara couldn't pull of one of his strongest techniques.

A giant toad suddenly puffed up on the battlefield, the Sannin on its head. He shouted something to the Jinchuuriki and turned back to Deidara. Great, it looked like the two had decided to switch opponents. Probably good for Hidan, but not for Deidara.

"Deidara-sempai!" A shout came from behind him, and something scrambled and dragged down on the tail of his bird. He closed his eyes, if only for a second, and sighed in relief. At least it was someone, and Tobi could survive one of his bombs with his intangibility technique.

"Deidara." Obito, now. Okay, even better. This meant that… wait, that was a man's voice.

Deidara glanced back over his shoulder after dodging yet another attack from Jiraiya.

"Obito. Why are you male, un?"

"Henge, one of Itachi's, so it's extra strong. Pein wants us to keep the gender change a secret. You and Hidan are eccentric enough that no one would be surprised if you did it deliberately, but the rest of us don't have that liberty. In any case, can you make several more birds? Or make this one larger? I'm expected to return with Sasori and Itachi shortly."

This was… better than he had expected. And if he had those two… and he had _that_… and then Itachi could… while Sasori… Right, Deidara could make this work.

"I'll make two more, can't promise on the position, but I'm sure you can compensate for that, un. If you three are going to be here, I have a plan, but bring me some extra clay just in case, un."

Obito's weight was gone from the bird a second later.

It took thirty more seconds of frenetic fighting for the other two to arrive.

"Looks like Pein sent us a pretty strong group for a backup, un." Deidara muttered as he flew his own bird high enough to get out of range of Jiraiya for a minute but close enough to keep him from turning his attention to Hidan, as had happened the last time Deidara had gone too far away.

"Sasori! Itachi! Tobi! I have a plan, un!" His hands quickly molded birds, and a flash of his chakra imprinted words into the surface on the back. This was a technique that Sasori had almost forced him to create, impressing on him the need to be able to communicate quickly, efficiently, and subtly on the battlefield in case the need ever arose.

"As it now has." Sasori muttered. He glanced over at Deidara after he read through the short instructions on the back, but soon nodded, albeit having the head doing the nodding be that of Hiruko. He may not agree with Deidara on much, but this plan had enough power to work. It wasn't subtle, but few things that Deidara did ever were. Itachi and Tobi did the same, though neither knew what Deidara's actual plan for the final attack was. They'd never seen or even heard of it.

"Now!" Deidara shouted, and the birds lost the words, plummeting to the ground near the Sannin, who quickly erected a wall of earth to protect himself. The Jinchuuriki allowed his clones to take the brunt of the damage for him. Hidan was well away from the explosions, and was unhurt by them. Deidara, upon catching sight of his lover's face in that brief second of respite, was suddenly very glad that Hidan couldn't die of fatal wounds.

The birds holding Sasori and Itachi dropped straight down. Sasori quickly sent a large number of poison needles from Hiruko's mouth at Jiraiya while his bird passed by. Most of them were deflected off to the side, but several flew wide just far enough to pass _by_ Jiraiya and not be deflected to conserve energy. Itachi caught two of them, and moved in for his part, hopping around on top of the toad almost as easily as the summoner himself.

Sasori turned again as he landed and immediately set off, moving towards the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. Tobi had come by, and was taunting the boy as his good boy self. It was infuriating the teenager enough that his eyes started to glow red with youki, as did many of his clones'. Sasori's eyes widened from where he sat in Hiruko. Why hadn't the boy used that power before?

He shook his head and waved one of Hiruko's many arms at the boy, releasing one of the seals inside that held a dozen kunai. Several of the boy's clones went down, and Sasori suddenly realized that he may not be able to get this done completely. This boy worked on a grand scale, not finesse like Sasori. This was Deidara's type of opponent, but he couldn't let that deter him.

Well, if the kunai weren't as effective as he'd hoped…

He unsealed the Sandaime Kazekage. He noticed out of the corner of his eye as several bombs took care of a squad of clones, and a scythe of several more. Tobi seemed to be better at angering and distracting the boy, but that was probably a good thing, since it meant that he and his clones were more likely to make a mistake.

A wave of iron sand began to mow down clones as it poured from the human puppet's mouth. A half dozen were hacked to smoke as the buzz saw in the puppet's arm came out and ripped its way through them. More poison needles sprang from Hiruko's mouth, in a wider spray than before… and one of them hit. The boy hadn't gone off and hid as Sasori had suspected at moments in the fight. No, he had stayed right in the thick of things with the clones.

But a needle had entered, and the poison was paralytic in nature. The boy would slowly lose control of his chakra, and his already pathetic control—Sasori had seen the waste that had gone out when he made those clones, even without special eyes like Itachi's—would be even worse as his heart continued to pump the toxin through his body. Out of the corner of Hiruko's eye, Sasori noticed that Itachi had caught Jiraiya in an illusion just long enough to hit him with one of the two poison senbon that he had caught earlier.

The poison was making its way through. Their opponents were distracted enough that…

"JUMP!" Deidara nearly screamed, though he held tight, later, to the notion that he had shouted or yelled.

Hidan jumped, and landed on a bird that flew down, and a second later Sasori joined him, Sandaime already back in its scroll. Itachi and Tobi rode up on the same bird, and a second later all five were with Deidara. The clay was all gone, nowhere to be seen.

"Sempai…?" Tobi questioned, seemingly worried.

Deidara waved him off, made a hand sign, puffed out his cheeks, and…

It was a little disgusting, seen the clay spew out of Deidara's mouth like that. It looked unhealthy, almost.

The clay landed on the ground and piled up, seeming much larger than the amount coming from Deidara. It puffed and bulged as it built itself up, gaining color and shape until a giant clay clone of Deidara stood in the middle of the small town that had just been destroyed in the fight of shinobi. As soon as that was done, Deidara pulled the birds into a fast and steep climb to get as far from the enormous bomb as he feasibly could without losing efficiency.

Jiraiya seemed to realize the danger, and yelled at the toad. It dispelled, and the two Konoha nin scrambled for purchase on the ground, backing away from the giant, which was bulging in a manner reminiscent of its earlier creation.

"Katsu!" Deidara shouted, hands in their customary position. The bomb… dispersed, for lack of a better word. It seemed like a dud.

Deidara knew that the other Akatsuki members weren't fooled. Sasori and Hidan already knew about it, and Tobi and Itachi could probably see very well what was going on.

"Let me show you the true power of art, un." A mad glint entered Deidara's eye as a similarly insane grin took hold of his face. "Let the C4 show just how art…"

The dust suddenly became _much_ finer.

"IS A BANG!"

Jiraiya's arm began to disintegrate, skin flaking off as the blood vessels beneath played host to a myriad of miniscule explosions. The jinchuuriki fell to his knees, clutching his stomach, and the Kyuubi chakra took over his body, trying to heal it as fast as it was destroyed. He seemed to be losing his human sanity as the microscopic bombs did their job.

Then they disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

Deidara's face fell. "What, un?"

The trees continued to disintegrate. A stray dog that hadn't run away during the fight fell to dust. An old man, so close to dying that he couldn't move, died far more peacefully than had his illness been allowed to progress.

A group of orphans in a small house, shuddering and hiding, crying and whimpering, were miraculously spared.

Deidara did have a soft spot for children, after all, especially orphans.

"Reverse Summoning." Itachi grunted. "The toad that left probably summoned them to wherever the toads consider home. It was close though. You may have managed to at least permanently injure Jiraiya-sama."

"You think so?" Deidara suddenly leaned heavily to the side, collapsing onto the back of his bird. All three birds began to dip.

"S***! Dei! Wake up!" Hidan jumped off of her bird and onto Deidara's. The priest(ess) slapped Deidara across the face to wake him up.

"Wha—?" Deidara suddenly shot up straight. "Tobi, get us back to the base, now!"

Tobi sensed the urgency, and, in a move that used up quite a bit of his chakra as well, transported all three birds and all five people (plus Hiruko) back to the area right in front of the base, making sure that they were only a few feet off the ground. That was a very good thing, as Deidara quickly tumbled off of his bird and onto the ground. He lay there, panting, and didn't moved. One hand was palm up, and thought the fingers curled in, the tongue was obviously lolling out.

"Chakra exhaustion. Let's get him inside." Sasori quickly jumped off of the bird he had been on, and strode towards Deidara. A quick check of Deidara's pulse and pupil confirmed his suspicions. "Come on."

The other's trooped on in behind him, with Hidan leaning heavily on Tobi for support, as many muscles, tendons, and other body parts were currently in middle of healing in ways the human body was not necessarily meant to.

"Well?" Pein stood in the door to his office, arms crossed. Sasori and Deidara passed by without a word, particularly as the second was out cold, but the others stopped.

"Deidara nearly killed them." Itachi stated, _her_ tone distant.

Pein's eyes widened, several extra rings of the Rinnegan coming into view. "What?" He breathed, and then shook his head, regaining control of his emotions. There was a war behind his eyes—in a room far, far away—but he grabbed onto the question that was important to his power, not his heart, first. "Is the Jinchuuriki still alive? If so, will he survive? We can't wait another three years for the Kyuubi to reform."

"We got lucky." Hidan coughed up a little blood, and looked down at her hand in annoyance.

Itachi gestured at Pein's office. "May we?"

The Rinnegan eyes stared at them in a measured gaze for several seconds. "This story had better be a d*** good one."

"Tobi could get you some popcorn!"

o.o.o.o.o

**(CONTINUED FROM TOP)**

**If Hidan hadn't been turned into a woman, and been a couple with Deidara, the situation in the bar where they went drinking would not have ended in a fight (or at least, not as large of one).**

**If there hadn't been a fight, Naruto and Jiraiya would not have ended up in critical care at Konoha's hospital two and half months before their expected return.**

**If they hadn't ended up in critical care, shaking Konoha's belief in Akatsuki being an organization they could easily take down, well… you'll see what plans I have for that.**

**o.o.o.o.o**

**A/N: As you can tell, I acknowledge Jiraiya as an extremely powerful ninja. Unfortunately, even he and Naruto can't exactly shrug off five S-rank criminals at once, especially not ones that are used to working in tandem on missions and such. This is where things start getting a little less "Whoo-hoo, super happy fun crack time!" This is the first dip in the roller coaster I mentioned in an Author's Note recently. It's not a very big one, but that's because you got on a kiddy coaster first by accident, and just realized that there's an enormous monster waiting for you.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**


	20. Snuggle Me

**A/N: …I'm sorry, but when you get to Deidara and Hidan… I just had to do it! I needed fluff after the last chapter! The snuggles were necessary!**

o.o.o.o.o

"_Producing more wars than ever!"_

_- The usual guy. About the US._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara groaned as he slowly came to. The light was too strong. What had happened?

Ah, right. The drinking. The fight. The chakra exhaustion.

The fight wasn't a good one. Deidara was too worried about catching Hidan in a blast to do major damage most of the time—which, looking back, was a bit nonsensical unless he planned on using either C4 or C0, though he had used the former anyway, so it was at least a somewhat justified worry—and had had just enough to drink that it had affected his fighting. Not to mention that he had not just the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, a kid with enough power to knock down a mountain if he ever figured out how to harness it, but also Jiraiya, who was lauded as the most dangerous of the Sannin, to fight.

"Hey, Dei."

Deidara cracked open one blue eye, and stared through his hair at Hidan. The woman was sitting on the edge of the other bed in the Akatsuki infirmary, and her hair was mussed and eyes bloodshot. There was a still-healing wound on her lower ribcage, where two or three Rasengan had hit her during the fight.

"Hidan." Deidara closed his eye again. "How bad was it, un?"

"How bad was what?"

"…let's start with me after the fight, un."

Hidan was silent for a minute, likely mulling over the question. "Not too bad, I guess. A few cuts, a burn on your shoulder and knee, and severe chakra exhaustion."

Deidara sighed into the pillow. "Got it… anyone else, un?"

"Well, I got hit by a lot, but I'm fine." Hidan waved away herself first. "Itachi was a boss, that f***er, only got burned once, on the elbow, and Sasori and Tobi were more or less unscathed, though puppet f***er's complaining about how many senbon and kunai he wasted during the fight and a big scratch on Hiruko."

"Konoha?"

"You don't remember?"

Deidara, with great effort, rolled over onto his back, head still on its side, facing Hidan, and eyes closed.

"Sort of, un? Can you tell me what happened again, un?"

"Um," Deidara heard squeaking as Hidan shifted around on the bed. "Well, the Toad Sage _definitely_ lost an arm. I don't think that even the Hokage can get it back for him. 'Course, he's an S-rank, so it isn't like this is going to make him helpless or weak."

"And the kid, un?"

"I think the Kyuubi kept him from taking too much damage, but he'd be dead otherwise. Everything else in the area was." Then she chuckled. "Sasori's got a spy or two in Konoha's hospital. Turns out both are in critical care at the moment. Recovering, but you definitely got them good."

"Any revenge seekers coming after my a** from Konoha, un?"

"Everyone's after you're a**, Dei, but I'm the only one who gets it."

Deidara couldn't help but laugh, even if it was only weakly.

"Thanks, un. I needed that." He sighed again, knowing that it would take several more days for his body to recover, and it looked like it had already been at least one and a half. "How did Pein take it, un?"

Hidan shifted again, and Deidara opened both eyes to stare at her.

"It… well, it wasn't _bad_. He seemed to be a bit weird about you making a Sannin lose an arm, but he was glad that you didn't kill the Jinchuuriki. You're not getting punished, but that's mostly because you've been unconscious, in a lot of pain, and weren't the one that started the fight."

"You were, though, un."

"I already had my punishment." Hidan didn't elaborate. Deidara closed his eyes again, and pulled up the covers closer to his chin, shivering. Chakra exhaustion had a tendency to act rather like the flu at times, temperature flashes and fevers being the most common similarity.

"Hey, Hidan? I'm cold, un." One blue eye, larger than normal, gazed up at Hidan, pleading in an almost mischievous way.

"I'm guessing you want to snuggle or spoon or some s***."

"Yeah…"

"Budge on over." Hidan slid into the bed, propping Deidara onto his side pulling him into her chest. The blond purred in contentment as one pale hand reached up and tousled his hair, scratching behind his ears. A tail slid around under the covers until it was wrapped around Hidan's waist, pulling her closer to the blond, albeit not very strongly.

"Did anything else happen?" Deidara yawned. He felt Hidan shrug, which wasn't a hard feat as Hidan's chest telegraphed the move quite fully.

"Well, you know how Itachi was dealing with PMS? Yeah, weasel's period started only a few hours after we got back. Konan helped her through it, but still, you've got to admit that it's f***ing hilarious…"

Deidara chuckled, but didn't say anything more as he fell asleep in his lover's arms, warm and ostensibly quite safe.

o.o.o.o.o

Three days later, and Deidara was back to full health. Of course, it being three days later, he was also now a she.

"Tobi, you have to stop getting your hair caught in things." She admonished, pulling a brush through the older woman's hair. She paused every once in a while to pick out leaves, twigs, and brambles.

"Tobi knows, but it's long, and pretty, and Tobi doesn't want to cut it but the pigtails aren't enough!" Tobi wailed. From an armchair a few yards away, Kakuzu snorted in derision.

"Hm… We could try braiding them?" Deidara suggested, and then frowned a little. "Hold on, the brush is stuck. Don't yelp."

She _yanked_ on the brush, and it came out with several more hairs than it should have. She sighed, "You know what? Just go take a shower and get this gunk out of your hair, and we'll try to braid it afterwards. 'Kay?"

"Okay, sempai!" She darted off, tangled hair trailing behind her like a pair of streamers.

"Do you know?"

Kakuzu looked up at Deidara's question. There was no one else in the room now that Tobi had left.

Red and green eyes narrowed. "Know what?"

"Do you know the truth behind, and in front of, Tobi?" One blue eye stayed trained on the doorway, still not even glancing at Kakuzu as Deidara spoke.

"I suppose…" Kakuzu hedged, "That the answer would depend on what you mean by truth. There are things that you have said, that Tobi has done, that imply a number of—"

"Do you know who he is?"

Kakuzu glared slightly at being interrupted. "Only that the idiocy is likely an act."

Deidara nodded, now staring absently at the wall. "Alright… you're actually one of the only two members not to have been told in any manner about what lays below the top layer… let's leave it like that."

"Why?"

Deidara looked over, her visible eye hooded. "You would use what I know as blackmail. And honestly? I prefer Tobi like this, all hyper and happy and stuff. She's adorable, and if everyone _knows_ that she isn't like that, then what reason does she have to continue the act? I _like_ the act."

"No wonder."

"You're a d***, Kakuzu." Deidara moped, pouting as she stared at the woman that was already a decade past octogenarian.

They sat in silence for several more seconds, and then Deidara, out of boredom, began to hum. Kakuzu, finding the humming to be substantially less annoying than most hums, ignored her even when the blonde got up and began to dance and sing rather softly. It only ended when Tobi came back into the room, just out of the shower. Her hair was wet and tousled, but looked to be clear of its earlier 'decorations.'

"Tobi's hair is clean, sempai! What should Tobi do now?"

"Uh… I can't actually do anything until it's dry."

"Oh, okay!" And then there was water on the floor.

Kakuzu stared. "What did you just do?"

"Tobi turned like a ghost and all the water fell off of Tobi's hair and onto the floor!"

Deidara laughed. "Oh, oh god. Tobi, I love you, you know that? Seriously, though, you better clean that up. I don't like it when Konan-nee is mad at me."

"Ah! Tobi doesn't want Konan-sama to be mad at her either!" Tobi rushed over into the kitchen, her hair a spiky sheet behind her, deceptively glossy.

"Mad at… her?" Kakuzu seemed perturbed. "Tobi has adjusted that quickly to the change?"

Deidara frowned in the direction of the kitchen. "That's actually a good point. Most of you are dealing with gender dysphoria, and probably will for the entire time we're like this, but Tobi's acting like 'she' has been a girl her whole life. Even Hidan isn't completely comfortable like this."

"We could ask her when she gets back." Kakuzu suggested. Deidara just shrugged, still looking a little disturbed.

A minute later, Tobi was back and wiping up the water with a dishtowel.

"Hey, Tobi?" Deidara waited until after the mess was cleaned up and then spoke.

Tobi whirled around, towel still in hand. "Yes, sempai?"

"Why are you so comfortable with being a girl?" Best to get it out bluntly and quickly.

Tobi tilted her head to the side. "What does sempai mean?"

Deidara bit her lip, considering. "Go put away the towel, and then come back and I'll tell you while I'm doing your hair."

"Okay, sempai!"

Several minutes later, Deidara was carefully brushing through the black hair in her hands. Tobi's hair looked pretty and smooth when it was up, but as soon as it came down, her Uchiha heritage showed itself in her incredibly _spiky_ hair. It wasn't difficult to brush, but it fluffed up and hid the parts that still needed brushing. Deidara eventually managed to pull it up into a pair of pigtails again, and began attempting to braid them. During this time, the two talked, and Kakuzu listened and even offered her own opinions occasionally.

"Gender dysphoria," Deidara began, "Is a psychological term meaning that a person feels as though they are inhabiting the wrong body, that they aren't comfortable as they are, people who feel as though they were born the wrong gender. Right now, I'm expecting that all of the gender-switched members of Akatsuki are experiencing it. What's confusing me is that you're already referring to yourself in the feminine when you talk."

Tobi was silent for a few seconds, and then nodded sharply, forgetting that Deidara still had a half-finished braid in her hands. Deidara's grip wasn't very tight, so the braid slipped out instead of yanking on Tobi's head, but it still unraveled a little. Tobi didn't noticed, and simply spoke anyway.

"If sempai can do it easy, then Tobi will try to too!"

_I won't allow myself to be bested by a child._

Deidara frowned as she braided the messy hair in front of her. "This… isn't really that kind of thing. I mean… this is _natural_ to me. Changing sex doesn't affect me the way it does the rest of you because I'm firmly settled into my identity and instinctually have no trouble with functioning as either a man or a woman, because I don't have problems with my gender, ergo I consider myself both masculine and feminine. You guys are, well, I don't want to say _normal_, but you guys are like most of the population: you think of yourselves as the gender you were born into. So don't try to act like I do because you think of it as a challenge. It would be like drawing mouths on your hands because I have them. I was born with these, and… listen, do you at least understand what I'm getting at here?"

Tobi was silent, but a small answer finally came, much calmer, much deeper and more mature in tone than was normal. "I understand. But the cat features?"

"Are you kidding? These are awesome!" Deidara giggled, her ears and tail twitching in a show of her enthusiasm, even if Tobi was facing the wrong direction and couldn't see as a result.

"But sempai just said that—"

"I adapt easily. And honestly, the ears and tail are more like grabbing a second bloodline by accident or some such nonsense." She giggled a little more. "I like them because they're cute and fun and even though they get in the way sometimes, they're still actually quite a bit more useful than they look. The tail helps my balance enormously, and my hearing is amazing."

"Tobi gets it." Tobi turned around as Deidara finished the final tie on the second braid. "How does Tobi look?"

Deidara regarded her thoughtfully for a few moments, and then sighed. "The pigtails looked better."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: This chapter and the next will be building off of ****Autumn-is-beautiful****'s suggestion of going into more depth on their dysphoria (not feeling as though one is in the right body). A few others mentioned similar things, but she's the one that put a name to it and gave me the most inspiration.**

**You can tell me who you want the next chapter, and the one after that, to focus on in terms of character development and dysphoria-focus.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**


	21. Dysphoric

"_It's kind of a running theme in American politics that we arm people and then it comes back to bite us in the butt."  
"It could be worse. We could be giving people nuclear weapons."  
"You're right, it could be worse. We could be giving people planes and having them crash into major buildings in the US."_

_- The usual guy, my history teacher, and then the other guy that does a lot but not as much._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara slowly opened the door to Konan's room and peeked in. "Konan-nee?"

"You can come in, Dei-chan."

It was decidedly odd, Deidara thought, to hear a man's voice coming from Konan. Not because of the sex change itself, but because of how much it grated on Deidara's nerves compared to the changed voices of the others. While hearing female voices from his formerly male comrades wasn't all that disturbing, hearing a male voice from Konan _was_. The problem was that Deidara couldn't pinpoint why, other than that the idea of men becoming women and returning was more ingrained than that of women becoming men and going back. Even that thought, however, was discarded, because Deidara could _tell_ that that's not what it was. He was so used to the thought of both that the small difference in time for which he'd thought of both situations naturally was irrelevant.

Maybe it was that Konan was so soft and feminine even as a man, and his voice reflected it? Culturally, hearing a woman speak in a rough, masculine manner was treated with neutrality, overall, while a man speaking in a soft, feminine manner was treated negatively… but no, it wasn't that either.

Maybe… Deidara shook his head and just walked into the room before Konan grew curious about what he was doing, just standing outside his door.

"Hello, Deidara." The voice that Konan now spoke with still feminine, and not even all that deep. However, it was still undoubtedly male.

"Hey, Konan, un." Deidara came in and sat down on the bed. At the moment, he had decided to try reversing his original gender-changing trick, and was female while appearing male.

"Is something wrong?" the blue-haired man turned away from the desk, orange eyes lidded but bright.

"Actually, I wanted to ask how you're dealing with all this, un." Deidara waved a hand at Konan's body. "I know that it's a huge shock, and most people don't adapt to a change in sex, or even gender, as well as I do, un."

Konan sighed and stood, walking over to a full-body mirror and standing in front of it, back turned to Deidara. Deidara was at just the right angle to see him in the mirror.

"I am… dealing with it."

Deidara asked for the unspoken continuation, "But?"

"But… it's so _wrong_. I am a woman. I have always been one, and my body and mind were in harmony. I was who I was, and I was proud of it."

Deidara got the feeling that Konan was only partially talking about the differences between his/her male and female selves. "I know it's disorienting, un. I can't fully understand, because I've been switching for so long, but… it's only temporary, remember, un? Three months, and it ends."

Konan still hadn't moved from in front of the mirror, and still didn't speak. The doubt hung in the air like a thick cloud, and Deidara _knew_ how little the others believed in Hidan when he spoke about Jashin.

He sighed and stood up, and came up behind Konan. He was even shorter than Konan than before—Deidara height didn't change between sexes, but most of the others did suffer from such a situation—but he could still come and peek around Konan's arm.

And give him a hug.

"It'll get easier, I promise, un." Deidara wasn't used to being the one comforting Konan. The situation was usually the other way around, but in this case, Deidara was as close to being an expert on this as any of them had. The psychological ramifications of this sudden change had hit them all hard, after the shock had worn off. Almost a month in, and they still found themselves feeling like everything was just _wrong_. Their arms were too long or too short. Their minds were more likely to linger on some things, and their emotions had gone to h*** in a hand basket, carried there by their changed hormones. They put on brave faces, but they were all struggling with it. Some more or less than others, but there was just that lingering feeling of _wrongness_ to their minds and bodies, and it made them all uncomfortable.

"How—" Konan's voice actually broke. "How do you put up with it?"

Deidara frowned. "I don't. I don't just put up with it, I _thrive_, un. I mean, I grew up as one sex, getting teased as being the other. It never felt _wrong_ to be what I was originally, but neither did it feel wrong when I first switched, un. I don't… gender and sex are hard things to ascribe labels to once you get out of binary gender, un. I mean, I might be bigender, or androgynous, or genderqueer, or all three if they're even mixable… it's a complicated thing, un. All I really know is that I'm comfortable as both, or neither, or changing between them when I feel like it. But… most people aren't like that, un. Most people don't even have switching as an option. And most people are pretty comfortable the way they're born and never see any reason to change who and what they are, un. Most people are cisgender, and for someone like that to suddenly be thrust into a situation where they're _not_… I almost can't wrap my head around it, un." (1)

"I guess you're lucky, then." Konan let out a miserable sounding chuckle, his shoulders hunching in on themselves. He gestured towards the mirror. "I look in the glass, and I can't see that as myself. I look and I see someone else standing between me and the mirror."

"That's probably what most of the organization is feeling right now, un." Deidara muttered, and then moved away, holding on to Konan's arm. "Come on, sit down. You're probably more stressed than you realize, un."

Konan let Deidara move him, and Deidara huffed as he sat down on Konan's bed again, pulling the blue-haired man down to sit next to him.

"Does this have anything to do with you and Nagato? Does… does it have anything to do with the baby you're trying to have, un?"

Konan didn't flinch, but the small twitch that occurred by his ear—it was one that Deidara had learned to look for by now—indicated that the answer was very much a yes.

"Let me guess, it's even harder and more out of reach this way, un?"

Konan snorted mirthlessly, derisively. "Isn't that obvious?"

"Yeah, kinda." Deidara knew he wasn't as expected to make certain actions as a man, but that had grown less and less applicable over the years as his two sides mixed further. He was just so outside the norm overall that the members of Akatsuki had stopped expecting things a long time ago.

So it didn't surprise Konan much when the blond gave him a hug. Not anymore.

"Only three months, remember? We know what happened, and it'll be fine, un."

Konan shook her… his head. "No, I'm not sure it will. Nagato had been getting better, but this sudden change… It may have set his, her, whatever, _Nagato's_ progress back by months. I don't know if it's the body's physiology, or the sudden shock, but most of the weight gain that we've been managing recently has just… stopped. Nagato hasn't gained more than a pound over the past few weeks, and we were doing so _well_ on that specialized diet too…"

Deidara bit his lip, not knowing what to say.

Was there anything _to_ say?

o.o.o.o.o

Zetsu stared down at her body, and then over at a mirror.

It… it was a little odd, to be sure. It had taken this long for Zetsu to get comfortable with the idea of actually _examining_ this body in a mirror, but get comfortable with it she did.

Sex and gender were nearly foreign concepts. Sure, plants and people both had a technical gender most of the time, but Zetsu was a… a science baby, maybe? Zetsu wasn't human, or plant, or animal, or anything, really. Zetsu's gender had almost been purely aesthetic, and then Madara had decided at the last moment to do something so that there was a working set of genitals. Zetsu wasn't quite sure why, but it probably had something to do with urinating.

Having breasts was odder, especially since they were a lot more sensitive than a regular, no, a _male_ chest (Kami knew how Deidara would react if Zetsu referred to a male chest as a normal one). They weren't particularly large, or particularly small, but just the fact that they were _there_ made fighting so much more difficult. They had to have support, and even be bound down if Zetsu wanted to win a taijutsu battle (not that the plant-person ever did much hand-to-hand), and being struck there _hurt_. That was why Zetsu thought of the… _appendages_ as sensitive. It hurt just as much to be hit there as it did to be hit in the groin. And, as Tobi had earlier found out, it hurt just as much to be hit in the groin as a woman as it did to be hit in the groin as a man.

The change had had greater psychological effects, though. White Zetsu, the one that had _technically_ chosen to get the degree, was fascinated by how his comrades were acting, but even _more_ fascinated by the changes wrought upon her black half and upon Tobi.

She _knew_ that Tobi had started looking at Deidara with fondness. It wasn't much of a secret, considering how Tobi had actually come out and said it a few times. But this sudden change hadn't just made them all uncomfortable; it had given them (all but Zetsu) a challenge and a pinnacle to strive towards: Deidara. Then had come the conversation between Deidara and Tobi that had shoved everything into perspective once it had spread: Deidara, the one that was so at ease, didn't think it was a good idea to emulate him, to emulate her. It wasn't _healthy_ for them to do so.

Zetsu, privately, agreed, and made sure to tell Tobi this when they next talked. It was a bit of a surprise that there wasn't anyone that had actually experienced gender _eu_phoria upon the change as opposed to dysphoria, but they already had Deidara, so it maybe it wasn't all that surprising that there weren't any other statistical outliers in the organization. (2)

Tobi had started to act strangely after that talk, and had come to Zetsu for help, ostensibly to talk to the black half about how the Moon's Eye Plan should proceed with these complications.

The conversation had invariably shifted to Tobi's mask. Not the orange one, no, but the mask that _was_ Tobi. It was not Madara, the senile old bat that wanted to take over the world. It was not Obito, who had been broken as a child and never quite fixed up right, whether mentally or physically. No, Tobi was the third mask, emulating a friend that neither had seen in years.

(Zetsu never did mention that Obito's break with sanity was what had led him to get a psychological degree in the first place.)

The mask of Tobi, she said, was easy to hold. It was almost natural at this point, and… fun, she admitted. It was a part of her by now, and Zetsu could tell that even without the years of knowing the former Konoha-nin. But acting the part of a girl was, for whatever reason, so much harder. It almost made her doubt herself, in more ways than one.

The conversation had gone on from there and covered far too many topics, so many that Tobi's head had started to spin and she had excused herself.

Zetsu had thought that the mask may have started to break. The question, however, was which mask was breaking, or even how many.

The other thing was Black Zetsu.

Black Zetsu was supposedly Madara's living will. It wasn't Madara, but all the base thoughts, goals, instincts, etcetera… they were all there. White Zetsu was closer to being a moral center, however, supposed cannibalism aside.

(She was a misshapen clone of the Shodai Hokage grown from a tree. Was it even cannibalism when she probably wasn't human?)

The sudden change had thrown that side off-balance. It… she? Wasn't used to being questioned, and it rankled. But most of all, Black Zetsu wasn't used to questioning _herself_.

There was the crux of the problem. White Zetsu, for all her airiness, did a large amount of self-evaluation after getting the psychological degree. Luminosity was her goal, and she liked to think that she had achieved it. Black Zetsu, however, rarely did so much critical thinking, especially in regards to herself.

The sex-switch had changed that. White Zetsu had spent so much time trying to figure out what to say in case of counseling (as with Tobi, and even a few others that had come to talk for similar reasons), that such ideas had lodged themselves in Black Zetsu's brain and taken root. And from the ideas of gender identity, of romantic and sexual orientation, of finding one's alignment, of self-analysis, had come the ideas of _other_ kinds of mental dissection of one's own mind. (3)

It was a novel idea to Black Zetsu. She had never had much reason to think on her own actions and reasoning, but the winds of change had come, and she began to develop, and was no longer the simple little puppet that she had been since Madara created him.

Dance to your own beat, Zetsu. Your time will come.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara breathed in a familiar scent as he woke up, and opened his eyes to stare into equally familiar purple eyes.

"Hey, un."

"Hey." Hidan replied, smirk playing on her lips. "I liked last night."

"Me too." Deidara pressed himself closer to his lover, but still kept their heads far enough away from each other that they could look each other in the eye.

"Can't f***in' wait for it to go back to normal, though." She looked down unhappily, and Deidara chuckled softly.

"It'll happen, Hida-kun. We've got, what, two months left? It'll be over before you know it."

"Mm… I guess you're right." Hidan mused, one hand playing with Deidara's hair.

"C'mon, let's get ready for breakfast. I think I smell pancakes."

"Alright, blondie."

Too bad neither realized what today would bring.

There would be something especially…_ serpentine_ invading their twisted little lives today.

o.o.o.o.o

(1) Bigender, androgynous, genderqueer, cisgender. I urge you to look all these terms up, as well as related terms which I did _not_ have Deidara say, such as ambigender, transgender, and two-spirit. These terms each have different connotations, and there are often only very slight nuances to the meanings. I don't have the room to explain, so take a look through Wikipedia to see exactly what it is that I'm talking about.

(2) I think I've mentioned this before, but:  
Gender dysphoria – you feel like you're in the wrong body, sex-wise.  
Gender euphoria – you feel like you're in the right body, sex-wise.

(3) Gender orientation/identity, romantic orientation, and sexual orientation are three different labels that a person has to decide on for themselves. They are related, but one does not automatically decide the other two.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N – So… I did a lot of research for this chapter. I still can't say what Deidara's gender identity is, though I think it's something around bigender or two-spirit, or maybe I can just say s/he's genderqueer.**

**This chapter probably seemed rather angst-filled, but I did say I liked Cerebus rollercoasters, so doing sudden emotional changes from one chapter to the next (or even within a chapter) are to be expected. I also wanted to show just how much emotional turmoil would come from a change like this. The emotional aspects of a forced gender change in most fics always seem so **_**shallow**_ **to me, and I wanted to explain that something like this could be a lot more complicated than it seems at first glance.**

**You may have also noticed that I don't use gender pronouns as often for the other characters in these chapters as I do for Deidara. Think of that what you will. It may give you some interesting things to think about.**

**Further questions about gender and sexuality things should be directed to Wikipedia. If you want to talk to an actual person about it, talk to your psychology teacher or school counselor. You can ask me to talk about it… but I only know as much as I've learnt from TvTropes and Wikipedia. ****Autumn-is-beautiful**** knows more than I do, but still isn't an expert and may not have the time or motivation to talk to you about it.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	22. Snakes

"_It could be just me, but the Germans had a really __**sharp**__ looking uniform."_

_- Different guy, same class_

o.o.o.o.o

Two hours.

That's all it took. Just two hours after breakfast for Deidara and Hidan to get caught up in yet another large-scale fight.

Fortunately, there were enough people with them to be reasonably considered backup.

Unfortunately, the fight was with Orochimaru.

F***.

_F***_.

Of course, the fight didn't start out as a fight. It started out as a confrontation on the road, as Deidara, Hidan, and even Sasori were on their way to a nearby village for supplies. No one would find Deidara and Hidan odd—especially as Deidara was currently male—and Sasori just had to ignore the voices, though he chose to stay in Hiruko as an added precaution of sorts.

"No, un."

"You're telling me that _she_," Kabuto pointed at Hidan. "Is that way by choice? I know the information on Akatsuki. I find it incredibly hard to believe that—"

"Kami is a b**** and decided to punish Hidan for worshipping Jashin instead, un." Deidara cut him off. "Those two gods in particular don't get along very well, so when she got a little too drunk…"

Imply that it's only Hidan. Imply that it had something to do with Jashinism. Admit to one person succumbing, and they'll think that's all you have to hide, without showing the rest. Admit something smaller to hide something bigger, and then…

Deny, deny, deny.

"Obviously." Kabuto said dryly.

The tail of Hiruko twitched, and inside Sasori wondered if there would be a chance to get information from Kabuto at any point soon. The encounter was accidental but…

"Now, now, I'm sure there's a bigger story to all this."

Right. Orochimaru was there as well.

He smirked, but his gaze landed on Deidara. "Ah, my… replacement."

"Replacement? Like Kawarimi, un?"

Play dumb. Make him underestimate you, whether your reputation precedes you or not.

Orochimaru's face fell slightly, one eye twitching. "I see that you're not quite up to par."

"Maybe… but I'm cute and cuddly, and make people love me, and I nearly killed the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki and Jiraiya, whom I remember to be your old teammate, and everyone in Akatsuki loves my hugs, un! Especially Tobi!"

Mention a great act, but put it in the middle, to make it seem like it's less important to you than the others. Play ignorant, like you don't realize the significance of your actions. Place emphasis on the actions that make you seem sweet and kind, naïve, to pretend that image is the truth and more important than anything.

Orochimaru's face no longer held a semblance of a smirk or smile, and was now flat and disbelieving. He turned to look at Hiruko, at Sasori. "Really?"

Hidan answered instead. "No, Deidara's pretty sweet and cute. F***in' cuddly too. Especially in bed."

"After sex, un." Deidara popped up, a big grin on his face, which was innocent in spite of his comment.

"Mind-blowing sex, seriously."

"Minds aren't the only things getting blown, though, un."

Make the opponent feel uncomfortable with personal information, and get them thrown off-balance.

Kabuto stared.

Hidan and Deidara both turned to Orochimaru, and then simultaneously tilted their heads to the side. Deidara tittered. "Maybe Hebi-tan just needs to get laid, un."

And Deidara succeeded in making Orochimaru splutter.

"Not sure what kind of woman would want him, though…"

"A blind, deaf one, un?"

"Nah, just deaf is good enough. I'm sure there's at least one woman out there that would want to see what that tongue could do."

"Or a man, un."

"Oh, you're right. Oi, Hebi, which way do you swing?"

Silence.

Distracting the enemy? Success.

"Maybe he just wants Kabuto. They seem pretty close, un."

"Or an Uchiha."

"True, but ick. I mean, we know Itachi, un, and 'Tachi's little brother is like, fifteen." Deidara made a face. "Hey, so long as there aren't any penguins or something, un."

"The ones we met while we were drunk?"

"I may have signed their summoning scroll…"

Bring up a random even that confuses everyone that wasn't there, including the enemy.

"I think they've forgotten about us, Orochimaru-sama." Kabuto muttered, as various Otonin behind him shifted on their feet.

Sasori blinked from inside Hiruko. When…?

Reality doesn't exist until it has been written in, puppet. You didn't notice them because I didn't mention you seeing them. They didn't act, because I didn't write them to.

Sasori's eye twitched.

"DEIDARA-SEMPAI~!" A black and orange blur smashed into Deidara's midsection.

"Itai! Idiot, get off!" Deidara growled, pushing him off. And it was him, at the moment. But how…?

"Deidara-sempai! Itachi-sempai set water on fire again!"

"Again?"

"He can set water on fire?" Kabuto looked disturbed. Maybe he was thinking about Amaterasu? It would make sense, after all. He was undyingly loyal to Orochimaru, and all the information he gathered went straight to the snake for perusal. The fact that he somehow missed the fact that Itachi could apparently set nearly anything on fire, supposedly even without Amaterasu, that… that wasn't good at all. It didn't bode well for him, or his skills as a spy.

Hiruko suddenly seized, the head swiveling to stare straight up, completely ignoring the other shinobi, allies and enemies alike.

"I thought he stopped trying to boil things after the mess with the soup." Hidan muttered, looking away into the sky, as if…

Sorry, Hidan. Still, the little scorpion had to find out sometime, right?

"Kabuto… betrayed me?" Sasori muttered, eyes wide and voice hushed enough that no one heard but he… he and the two that could hear The Fourth Wall.

Heheh. Oops?

No… that was planned, that scene deliberate. I'm glad to know that you know now, Sasori-kun. Good luck.

The frozen form of Hiruko cracked, creaking ominously as it turned to look at Kabuto. After a moment of hesitation, the tail lashed like an angry cat's, and Deidara and Hidan got the message.

Well. It looked like their careful process dedicated to diverting a fight was now wasted. Too bad.

Five little spiders inconspicuously picked their way over to the Otonin. Orochimaru and Kabuto noticed and got out of the way.

The other three did not.

They had cursed seals, which instinctually activated at the explosions. Some of them lost arms, or legs, or other parts of their bodies, but snarled and attacked anyway.

"I call the cannon fodder!" Hidan shouted, running headlong at the monstrous creatures, scythe swinging wildly.

"Ano… Danna, who do you want, un? Kabuto or Orochimaru?" Deidara graciously offered Sasori a choice.

"Just tag-team them with me." Sasori grumbled, and suddenly Hiruko was moving

Deidara blinked, and then just shrugged. "Okay, I can live with that."

He prepared a clay bird to get up above the fighting, but froze as an obnoxious voice called out from behind him. "Sempai, sempai, sempai! What should Tobi do?"

Deidara twitched, but a second later the bird was large and ready for liftoff. "Just distract them when you can, un. And I know that you're not stupid enough to mess that up, _'bito-kun_."

"You're a d*** when you're male." Obito observed, the façade of Tobi falling away like a gossamer web.

"Tch. No s***, un." Deidara hopped up onto the bird and flew off, seething. Just great. Now they had a fight on their hands. And it was a fight against cursed seal users, yet another Sannin, and f***ing _Kabuto_.

_Thanks a lot, Sasori no Danna_.

Sasori gave no indication of having heard him, just continued to slash and weave between the two strongest opponents, using Hiruko to her full extent.

"Katsu!" The first of many bombs for the fight went off; the ones against the fodder-nin hadn't counted.

Everything was just so horribly awkward. Orochimaru and Kabuto were _skilled_, right up with Akatsuki, as was expected since Orochimaru used to be a member. And the fodder-nin… Hidan was taking her time with them.

"I'm f***in' sorry, alright? I promise I'll finish up soon, seriously!" Deidara rolled his eyes.

This was all Sasori's fault for overreacting. They could have gotten away without a fight, though Deidara still had the urge to kill Orochimaru in as vicious a manner as possible. But now was not the time, when he had backup. There were probably more people closing in, and Deidara _knew_ that Sasori was aware of how bad of an idea this was.

Right… let's see if they could group up as soon as Hidan was done with the cannon fodder and have Tobi take them back to the base.

o.o.o.o.o

Orochimaru grinned, ducking away from a strike from his former partner. Oh, but what _fun_ he was having! He hadn't had a fight this good since the invasion!

There were times when Sasori flinched, or glared, or even attacked twice as viciously as normal for seemingly no reason. Perhaps he could capitalize on that.

"You can't."

Orochimaru blinked in surprise as he dodged a shower of senbon. Had Sasori read his mind? Perhaps he had made a puppet out of a Yamanaka, and somehow developed it so that it could transfer what it read to him.

"Plausible, but no."

Orochimaru frowned, now, no longer enjoying this. If there was something new going on here, he wanted to _study it_, not just play around!

"Of course you do."

There were plausible explanations, but—

"It's the wall. I blame Deidara."

Alternatively, Sasori had gone insane and this was all just a crazy coincidence.

"Unfortunately, it's not. Goodbye."

A poisoned tail whipped through the area where he had been standing only milliseconds earlier, releasing a noxious cloud of fumes.

"Danna! Get over here!"

Sasori didn't move towards Deidara, simply continued to come at Orochimaru with killing intent aplenty.

"You may want to listen to your… _partner_." Orochimaru said snidely. Implying that one was 'serving' the other may throw the puppet-master off in the same manner that—

"It won't."

Kami _d***_ it!

"I'm rather sure she already did."

Orochimaru seethed, angry and—

"Danna! Stop messing around with Snake-face, un! And stop breaking the wall; it's fragile, un!"

Hidan began to sing as she killed the last of the cursed nin, a mad grin on her face.

"I love the feel of grain,  
The _screams_ of a man in pain,  
_Blood_ coming down like rain,  
Showering me!

"That everlasting thrill,  
_During_ the _final_ kill,  
_Body_ dumped in a _landfill_,  
Got off scot-free!"

"Wah! Tobi doesn't like this song!"

"Danna, move, un!"

"Let me feel your pain!"

One, two, three, four, on and on came the distractions, suddenly twice as inane, twice as intense, twice as diverting as normal.

"Danna, _now_!"

Sasori suddenly leapt straight up, being caught at the apex of his flight by the blond _replacement_ that had been fighting Kabuto the whole while.

They swerved, coming right in close by Hidan. The orange mask came over to them, and…

A twist in space.

A rip in time.

And they were gone.

_S***._

o.o.o.o.o

"F*** it, Sasori no danna, un!" Deidara yelled at him in the middle of the living room of the Akatsuki base. The blond boy's raised voice was drawing in more and more people. "You're supposed to be the rational one, un!"

"Quiet down, gaki."

"No, un!" Deidara was angry, now. "D*** it, why did you do that, un? There was absolutely no reason to do that, un!"

"It—"

"NO!" Deidara was breathing heavily, face flushed read. "That was pointless, un! We had a fight against _another_ Sannin, un; we could have died, un!"

"That wasn't going to—"

"And how do you know?!"

Silence.

Sasori stared at Deidara, who was infuriated by this point. Why, though? The brat even considered a death to be a beautiful thing, so why was he so angry about putting it on the line.

Deidara deflated. "You don't know, un. No matter what you can hear from the wall, no matter what you do, no matter whom you ask… you can_ never_ know, un. That was… out of character for you, and bad things happen when someone acts out of character, un. You… you're not like this. You want to be eternal, un. That… just… don't _scare_ me like that, danna!"

And then he was hugging Sasori, and there were actually tears in his eyes. Sasori still didn't quite understand why Deidara was so angry—after all, they'd fought Jiraiya and the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki only a few weeks prior—but he sighed and patted the brat's back anyway.

Tobi, the henge gone and leaving said lollipop in female form once again, tilted her head to the side. She sidled over to Hidan, whispering.

"Ano, Hidan-san?"

"What?" Hidan's eyes didn't leave Deidara and Sasori.

"Why is Sempai acting the way he does when Sempai is a girl?"

Hidan blinked and finally looked over to Tobi. "What do you mean?"

Tobi shrugged. "Sempai doesn't like hugs as much when Sempai is a boy, or crying." Tobi tilted her head a little more. "He's… more sensitive as a woman."

The tone was still childish, but the words were more advanced. This wasn't just a basic question, it was poignant and sharp, digging deep to the true heart of the issue.

Hidan understood anyway. "Deidara as a woman or Deidara as a man… they're the same person. Maybe he's more aggressive, maybe she's more cheery. The two sides have been evening out since Deidara first started the charade, especially after it stopped being a charade and started being the truth."

"So…"

"One side spills into the other." Hidan was feeling a little more philosophical than normal, and it showed.

"…How would Sempai react if someone died? Someone like Sasori-sama, or Hidan-san, or—"

"Stop." Hidan held up a hand, eyes squeezed shut. She glanced at Deidara and Sasori, assured herself that nothing was wrong, and then grabbed Tobi's arm. She muttered, "Come on, let's discuss this somewhere else."

They went to a different room, sat on the couch, and Hidan leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "Okay, first of all, I can't die. _But_, if something happened to make it so that I might as well be dead, or you or Sasori or Konan died, Deidara wouldn't react well. At all."

"You mean…?"

"You know that Deidara has mental problems beyond the pyromania and what people think is schizophrenia. I'm not sure if he's bipolar or depressed, or something third, but Deidara reacts a lot more strongly to things than most people. He's unstable, and I can't predict what he would do if one of the people close to him died. He'd probably be a lot more likely to use a suicide technique, though…" She put her head in her palms.

Tobi… no, he was Obito now… was silent for a few seconds, and then asked, quite quietly, "You mentioned me earlier, when you talked about whose death Deidara would react to worst. Why?"

"You haven't guessed?" Hidan sat back up, staring straight at Obito.

Neither seemed to care at the moment that both were spattered with blood, and Hidan was positively drenched, even including her long silver hair.

"Guessed what?"

Hidan laughed, though it was a weary laugh. "Should've known. Deidara cares about you, a lot. Not as much as about me or Sasori, but probably about as much as Konan. You two are closer than you think. Only question is, do you care about him as much as he cares about you?"

Obito couldn't answer.

o.o.o.o.o

Finally, Deidara's anger had dissipated, and everything was alright again.

"Brat?"

"Un?"

"…You mentioned a summoning contract back before the fight. Why haven't you ever used it?"

…

"Brat?"

"Danna… I kind of, ano, don't really like penguins…"

"What do you—?"

"The incident that I got the contract at is the same one that I got a phobia for them at!"

"…"

"Danna?"

*sigh* "Never mind."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N – Writing a scene that is a ****Featureless Plane of Dialogue**** is surprisingly difficult. And it less than a hundred words long. How do bad!fic writers do it?**

**So… character development? Or possibly just character exploration, if you want to call it that. This chapter ended up much less humorous and much darker than I'd planned. It's a little surprising, how that keeps happening. I mean, the humor isn't gone at all, but there are far more dark parts than before.**

**The song lyrics were from the Ferret video by SecretAgentBob on YouTube.**


	23. Wedding

"_Oh come on, the atomic bomb was worthy of at least a sandwich."  
"It was the bad cholesterol of our nation."  
"No, see, it was Vitamin B, for bomb."_

_- Three different people. All in my history class. I missed half the conversation because it was made of rapid-fire comedy and I can't type that fast, and I __still__ think it's funny._

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara!" Konan's voice, unnervingly masculine, rang through the base. "There's mail for you!"

"Coming!" Deidara dashed down the stairs, tail helping her balance as she overshot the landing.

She grabbed the small envelope that Konan held up as the blue-haired man still looked down at the other envelopes in his other hand.

Ears twitching in minor excitement, she looked at the return address, not recognizing it, and frowned. She made an earth clone—who knew what was in the letter, and if it was a seal that caused fire or any kind of blast, then a clay clone was a bad idea—and handed the letter off to it. After the clone opened it without incident, she shrugged and took the letter, dissipating the clone with a wave of her hand and a flicker of her chakra.

Her eyes roved over the words, and she was soon unsure of whether to be excited or depressed.

She walked into the living room, noting thankfully that both Sasori and Hidan were inside, along with Kisame, Itachi, and Zetsu. "Hey, guys?"

They all looked up, and she waved the card. "So… I just got Yumiko's wedding invitation. I'm allowed to bring one guest. Anyone want to come?"

"Wait, Yumiko was…" Hidan screwed up her face, thinking back.

"Don't hurt yourself. Your brain isn't used to that much work." Deidara teased, small grin coming back onto her face. Then it slid off and she sighed. "Yeah, Yumiko was my ex-girlfriend. She was the one that turned out to be the niece of some daimyo."

"Right… so I'm guessing it's either me or puppet-f***er."

"Don't call me that."

"No one cares." Hidan waved off Sasori's admonishment with a practiced air. "So? Who do you want to come?"

"I… that's the thing, I'm not sure. I mean, Yumiko met Sasori no Danna before, so she wouldn't be too freaked out by meeting him, and it would be a lot less awkward than bringing anyone else. On the other hand…"

"I'm your current beau?" Hidan guessed. She chuckled. "Relax. Here's thing that might make things easier for us to decide on this f***-up. Is it in a church or temple?"

"Um…" Deidara pulled the card back up to her face and scanned the words again. "Yeah, looks like it's in a Kaminari no Kuni Temple."

"Then take Sasori. Non-Jashinist temples tend to make my skin start itching if I'm in them for too long. I think most of them put up seals to kill off normal Jashinists that don't work on me because I'm immortal. They still sting a bit if I'm inside them for too long, though, so I prefer not going inside." Hidan shrugged and leaned back into the couch, folding her arms behind her head. Everyone stared at her for the surprisingly logical answer and solution.

"Huh." Deidara blinked and tilted her head to the side, ears twitching. "I forgot about that. So, Danna, do you want to come, un?"

Sasori looked up at Deidara's hopeful face and ran over the other options in his head. He took another glance at that wide, hopeful blue eye, and folded.

"Fine, I'll come, gaki."

Deidara squealed and hugged him, which somehow turned into a cuddling session where she forced him to start scratching her behind the ears as she lay on the couch, half in his lap. After only a few seconds, her eyes were closed as she hugged him and purred. Sasori sighed as he wondered.

How did he get himself into this mess?

And in the back of his head, though he ignored it as much as possible, was another question.

_Since when have I cared for the brat's happiness?_

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was male, and wore a surprisingly polished looking suit. Sasori stood next to him, uncomfortable with being out in public without the protective shell of Hiruko, in a slightly less formal outfit, as he could pretend to be far younger than he was and get away with a simple dress shirt and dress pants. Both of them had their weapons and cloaks hidden away inside scrolls attached to their hips.

Deidara took a deep breath as he held up his card to get the two of them through the door, and walked in. It was so incredibly odd to be here. He had never really interacted with Yumiko's family, considering the web of lies she had so carefully tried to craft. Being her ex would just make things awkward if people asked who he was and why he was there, particularly as the relationship had been a secret. He'd probably be best off if he just claimed to be an old friend that hadn't seen her in a while. It was close to the truth and wasn't likely to make people ask too many questions.

The ceremony passed fairly uneventfully, and then came the after-party. Deidara nervously came up to the newly-married couple and caught Yumiko's attention with a cough.

"Deidara!" She actually ran over to him, dragging her poor husband along behind her. The man seemed older than her, but at least it wasn't as large of a difference as some that Deidara had seen. It was more than a few years, but he wasn't more than a decade older than her. Yumiko was about eighteen now, and the man looked to be in his early twenties. Maybe… twenty-four?

Deidara stiffened as Yumiko threw her arms around him, sending an apologetic look at the man that was apparently said girl's new husband. "Er… hi, Yumiko-chan, un."

"Oh my gosh, are those cat ears? And a tail? Are they real? What happened?" She rattled off, just the way Deidara remembered her. It caused a faint smile to come onto his face.

"In order: yes, yes, yes, and… okay, so there was a god, er, goddess that got drunk, un. Really, really, drunk. When she was already in a bad mood, and she just, un… she doesn't like Hidan much and so she decided to kind of punish him… and everyone else in the vicinity too, un…" Deidara trailed off, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "It's alright though, it'll wear off in a month or two, un."

"Oh, okay. Hey, have you met Giichi yet?" And suddenly the happy, peppy tone was replaced with worry.

"That would be your new husband, un?"

"Erm, yeah…" Yumiko dithered a little, and suddenly seemed to realize just how awkward it must be for Deidara, being at his ex-girlfriend's wedding. He decided to try to make it easier on her and smiled a little as he shook his head.

"No, but I wouldn't mind being introduced, un."

Yumiko nodded sharply, her carefully coifed blue hair bouncing and several strands falling out and framing her face. "Alright."

Giichi, Deidara decided, wasn't all that bad of a guy. He was a little shy, and seemed a little uncomfortable around Yumiko, but there wasn't any hidden aggression in his movements or voice. He had the dark skin and fair hair that residents of Kaminari no Kuni were renowned for, but his features were altogether softer and slimmer than most of the dark-skinned Kumonin that Deidara had encountered or heard about. The two could probably grow to love each other, or at least be on friendly terms if nothing else.

Deidara voiced his approval, out loud, and caused both of the nobles to blush. He tried to ruffle Yumiko's hair, but missed as she squealed and ducked behind Giichi. Yumiko was still only an inch shorter than Deidara, who had hit five-foot three a month ago and figure he still had a year or so left to hope for some more growth. This put Yumiko at the same height as Sasori.

Speak of the Devil, and he shall appear.

Sasori came up to stand beside Deidara, half-lidded eyes staring at Yumiko with a distinct lack of amusement. "Brat. Other brat." He nodded to Deidara, and then Yumiko, who was staring at him with wide eyes. Sasori's eyes slid past her to Giichi, who tensed. "…"

"Stop scaring the civilians, un." Deidara hissed, jabbing an elbow into Sasori's side. The puppet jabbed him back, with far greater force as his limbs were wooden and the muscles covering Deidara's ribcage were not.

"Ano… should we… go? Um, the dinner is about to start, and we didn't really designate spots, so if you want to come sit next to us…" Yumiko offered hesitantly, a little nervous about Sasori being there.

The two had met several times before, briefly, while Deidara and Yumiko had still been a couple. Sasori had managed to thoroughly creep her out the first time, and utterly terrify her on at least two other instances.

He just thought of her as weak.

Deidara found it hilarious, though he had hid that particular opinion from his then-girlfriend. He didn't bother hiding his snickers now as they all went and sat down at one table, the mood slowly growing less tense.

"So, are you with anyone now? I mean, I figure you've probably had at least one relationship since we last saw each other, but there's also some lingering suspicions I had that I kind of want confirmed…" Yumiko trailed off, staring directly at Deidara.

He shrugged. "I got into one soon after I last saw you that ended after about four months, but that one ended on a bit of a sour note so I don't like talking about it, un. And about a year ago, well… remember Hidan?"

Yumiko's eyes widened, as did her grin. "Really?"

Deidara actually blushed as he scratched the back of his head again. "Er, yeah. I figured that we already got along better than a lot of couples, un, and I did find myself attracted to him sometimes… so I kind of just, you know, gave it a shot. And apparently, that shot hit a bull's-eye, un."

Yumiko giggled. "Well, I'm happy you found yourself a happy ending. Just, why didn't you bring him?"

Deidara winced. "Well, you remember how I said that a god kind of punished Hidan and everyone else nearby, un?"

"Yeah?"

"Hidan got turned into a girl, un." He chuckled. "Of course, there's still the fact that he, well, she at the moment, is a Jashinist priest, un, and going into most churches and temples causes extreme discomfort, so…" He waved at the nearby building where the ceremony had taken place.

Yumiko shrugged. "Oh well. At least you could come, right?"

"Yep. Oh, and guess what!"

"What?"

Deidara grinned, ignoring the immature impulse to reprimand the blue-haired girl for not guessing. "Remember the switches? I found a scroll that held a jutsu that could make them _real_."

Yumiko frowned at first, not understanding, and then comprehension dawned. "No way."

"Way."

Sasori resisted the urge to smack his forehead against something. Just sitting in on this conversation reminded him of why these two had gotten along so well back when they had been together.

He turned to Giichi. "So what's your position in the nobility?"

Giichi blinked, and then scrambled to gather his thoughts. "Oh, ah… my granduncle is the Daimyo here, and he doesn't have an heir. My dad died due to an illness three years ago, so I'm the next in line for the throne. But they wanted me to have a wife so that I could provide an heir the way that my uncle couldn't, so, the council arranged for this with Yumiko's uncle."

Sasori resisted the urge once again. How did Deidara keep getting dragged into things like this?!

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara yawned, walking into the kitchen the next morning. He sat down next to Hidan, his sleepy head lolling down onto Hidan's shoulder. This, of course, lead to Deidara falling down and snuggling into Hidan's lap.

The supposedly albino woman raised an eyebrow, but then rolled her eyes and started scratching her boyfriend behind his cat ears. She chuckled as she felt the tail curl around her arm. "C'mon, blondie, you gotta eat."

"Don' wanna." Deidara muttered, arms snaking around Hidan's waist and latching on tightly. He purred as he buried his face into Hidan's toned stomach, a grin twisting across his face.

Hidan bit her lip to keep from laughing, looking across the table at Kisame, who simply raised an eyebrow and went back to eating. Having turned thirty-two just over a month ago, the shark woman looked surprisingly young for her age. Hidan suspected that she would look the age she was had she still been male, but Kisame's female form was surprisingly small and almost childish. A pettanko, Hidan thought.

"Dei, come on, stop. That f***in' tickles. C'mon, please?" Hidan begged, and Deidara relented…

Only to bring himself up to sit on Hidan's lap, straddling both the priestess and the chair, back facing Kisame in a show of either disrespect or just ignorance.

"Oh? Would you rather I tickle you somewhere… else?" He breathed across her ear, which caused a blush to come over her face, slight as it was.

"Oi, no sex at the table." Kisame threw a fork, which managed to lodge itself in Deidara's ponytail.

The blond boy's face fell, and he turned around, getting off of Hidan, and dropped down heavily into his own seat. "You can't let us flirt and tease a little?"

"No, because you two get _weird_ if no one stops you fast enough." Kisame grumbled. "Or do I need to remind you about the watermelons?"

Deidara rolled his eyes, and Hidan snorted next to him, once again poised. "Okay, so we have one game where we hold a watermelon seed in our teeth and have the other try to bite it in half. It was _one game!_ And it's not even all that weird!"

Kisame snorted and waved them away. "Just eat your breakfasts, lovebirds."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N – A short chapter, I guess, but I think I really gave you some character development in concerns to how Deidara feels about past relationships. With Yumiko, he's on fairly good terms, but should Deidara and Mamoru see each other again… Let's just say that a year or more to let those feelings ferment turned them to anger and spite.**

**And Deidara, of course, made a clay sculpture as the wedding gift.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	24. Oh So Steamy

"_It's like the Zodiac. The Year of the Trout, known for swimming upstream…"_

_- The usual guy, following a discussion about the class of 2010, concerning a student we knew in that year. It was an interesting class. It was an interesting person (hilarious as can be, though; I knew the guy in drama club, and he was a total riot)._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Shame on me for forgetting! Shame on you for not noticing and REMINDING me!**

**I also did some research to figure out how a corset was actually laced, and what the physiological and mechanical effects on the body are (there are surprisingly few when it's done correctly. I read an article written by a physician on it, and the only real problems crop up when it's done incorrectly). I may have still gotten something wrong, so if you know what you're talking about and can see that I don't… please do tell me. I like doing the research and proving that I did so.**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara chuckled as he pulled the straps on Hidan's corset closed. Hidan herself looked confused. "What the h***?"

"Hm?" Deidara looked up at the back of Hidan's head. "What's wrong, un?"

"I thought these were supposed to be painful or some s***."

Deidara snorted, one ear flicking. "Only if you do it wrong, get the wrong size, are trying to look way, _way_ skinnier than you are, or are male at the time, and even the last one can be minimized if you take precautions, un."

Hidan frowned down. "So… these are actually _supposed_ to be comfortable?"

Deidara shrugged, nearly done with the lacing. "Maybe a little snug, but that's about it, un."

"But…" Hidan frowned. "Why do—"

"The media for drama and teenage girls with no idea how to lace up properly, probably, un. And there's people who get it wrong on purpose, but that's generally in bed, and at that point we just turn our heads away and mind our own business, un."

Hidan placed her hands on her ribs, on her waist, feeling the odd planes of the interesting new piece of clothing. "So…do the others know how?"

Deidara blinked, and then turned towards the door, biting his lip a little. His tail lashed in mild anxiety. "You can do the rest yourself, right?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, then. I'll go and see if anyone else needs help, un." He rushed from the room.

This situation is probably a little confusing to you all. Allow me to explain.

There had been a bet. The bet had been that, despite their supposed overwhelming masculinity, even the currently female members of Akatsuki could be made to feel simultaneously pretty and somewhat cool in dresses. There hadn't even been any true terms made, just gloating and bragging rights.

Deidara and Konan were convinced that it was very possible, as were their respective significant others (out of loyalty, if nothing else).

Most of the other sex-changed Akatsuki were convinced otherwise.

Tobi and Itachi acted like they didn't care.

Sasori and Zetsu _actually_ didn't care.

At least all their reasons and methods of either indifference or the faking their such were different enough that it wasn't creepy.

Deidara used this opportunity to make a large number of dresses in a very particular style:

Steam Punk.

(S/he'd also occasionally heard it referred to as Gaslamp/Gaslight Fantasy, but that wasn't very relevant.)

Let's see… closest were Itachi and Kisame. He banged his fist on the door, waiting for permission to enter. Female or not, Itachi was creepy and deadly and to be avoided at all costs.

"Who is it?" Kisame called out, and Deidara felt himself relax just a smidgen.

"Deidara, un. Hidan mentioned something and I figured it might be a good idea to come around and check. Mind if I come in, un?"

Kisame opened the door, stripped down to her undergarments, donning only an unlaced corset and bloomers. She glared at Deidara. "What?"

"Do you know how to lace up a corset correctly, un?" Deidara blurted out.

Kisame blinked, eyes wide. "There's a wrong way?"

"If you do it wrong, it can cause pain and discomfort, un." Deidara asserted.

Kisame hesitated, and then reminded herself that Deidara probably wouldn't care about seeing someone half naked. "Come on in, then."

The blond nodded and came in, eyes landing on Itachi, who had only just begun to slip on the purportedly restrictive undergarment.

"Here, let me do it." Deidara ordered, and took charge of the clothing.

"Why are you doing this?" Itachi asked in her customary monotone, though there seemed to be an additional accusatory note on the '_you'_.

"What do you mean?" Deidara smirked inwardly, almost wondering when the enmity between the two had switched directions, but knowing the reasons behind it. He spun Itachi to face him, starting to latch the front panels. His ears twitched, and his tail curled down around

"I would assume that Konan is just as capable of… _aid?_"

Deidara tilted his head to the side. "Huh. You're right, un. Maybe I'll get her, um, him to help out. It'll make things go faster, un. Shift."

"What?"

"Lean to one side and then the other so that it settles into place on your waist, un." Deidara clarified, nodding as Itachi acquiesced. He finished latching up and spun the woman around. "Good."

"So—"

"I'll finish up with you two first, un." Deidara assured her. He took hold of the straps and began to pull out the slack from the top ends. He went down row by row, making sure to not leave any slack. He got to the pull loops and started to tighten it. "Tell me when it starts feeling uncomfortable, un."

"…Now."

Deidara nodded, despite knowing that Itachi couldn't see him, and held the pull loops in place. "Alright, does that feel good? Is it snug without being uncomfortable, un?"

"Yes." Uncertain, but it was good enough.

Deidara nodded and held the pull loops out to the side. "Hold these, then."

He began tightening the lower straps as well, working his way back up, though it took a shorter time than the upper crosses. "Alright, give me those and I'll tie them off, un."

Thirty seconds later, Itachi was staring at her body in a mirror.

Itachi was, as a man, rather effeminate. As a woman, she had few curves, and a slim figure that seemed delicate and still feminine, but almost sweet, like a child's porcelain doll.

With the corset, her waist had slimmed, and the small mounds of her chest and rear had been ever-so-slightly enhanced. Her back arched more than normally, leading to an even better posture, and she felt the muscles of her abdomen and back receiving uncommon amounts of support.

"Wow, that's… impressive." Kisame commented. "Does it…"

"It doesn't hurt at all." Itachi muttered, hands resting lightly on the ribbing by her waist.

"Well, it better not, un!" Deidara huffed, but there was a grin on his face.

"Are you sure these are healthy?" Kisame asked, fingering the lace on the bottom edge of the one that Deidara had made for her.

"Of course." Deidara waved the question aside. "You're only wearing it for a few hours, and there'll be an inch or two of compression at most, and some people get that from their pants and belts alone, un. If you were wearing it longer, you might get some semi-permanent physiological changes, un. If you wanted it tight-laced, you'd potentially have to deal with organ compression and digestive problems, and that would be where and when pain would actually occur, un. As it is, though, you'll be fine, un."

Kisame and Itachi stared at him.

"What, un?"

"How and why do you know all that?" Kisame's question was slow and cautious.

"Duh, I've worn these before, un. I looked up the problems that could crop up. Especially when I wear one as a guy, un, 'cause… un…"

Kisame just shook her head and came closer, allowing Deidara to lace hers up the way Itachi's had been.

"Comfortable?"

"Surprisingly."

"Is it too loose or tight anywhere, un? It should be a little snug all the way around."

Kisame shrugged. "Not really."

"Good. I'll go see if anyone else needs help then, un." Deidara left the room, and Kisame and Itachi stared out the door, and then down at the corsets now constraining their torsos.

"Huh. Yours looks better than mine."

"Kisame… That is… so very, very irrelevant."

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara finished up with the people that still needed help with the situation—Tobi, Kakuzu, and Zetsu—and then helped Hidan finish up with the remaining preparations on the long dress, black and wine-red.

The hat, the gloves, the shoes… all of it was somehow in Deidara's realm of expertise, and he reveled in it.

"You guys are gonna look _awesome_."

And they did, somehow. I won't bore you with the details, but they were all dressed in varying outfits from Steam Punk, Gaslight Fantasy, and something called the Victorian Era (which Deidara and Hidan understood the meaning of, but no one else did).

Deidara and Konan even dressed up themselves and the Deva Path like a gentleman and shoved it/him (he was a corpse, but fundamentally male, so what was he as a pronoun then? Then again, it was Nagato through a proxy, and Nagato was currently female, so that left it up to debate even further) in with the rest as they took a picture, Deidara smirking like a moron.

"You look so cute, un!" He cooed as he hugged Hidan, rubbing his face into the ruffles on the tall woman's chest and purring. "And kinda cool, too."

"But…" Hidan prompted.

"Yeah, I'm totally focusing on the cuteness, un." Deidara didn't bother denying anything.

Hidan just sighed and rolled her eyes, ruffling Deidara's hair behind the ears and pulling him into a deeper hug.

Konan stood next to the Deva Path in a corner, both dressed up in the era clothing, arms crossed. Konan's head tilted to the side, as he watched Deidara and Hidan tease each other in the middle of the room, even as Deidara threw back his head and guffawed.

"They really do love each other, don't they?" Konan muttered, head resting on Pein's shoulder. A slight shift indicated the nod that answered him.

"Hm… I'm happy for them."

Unbeknownst to many in the room, the notion was one that almost everyone was thinking at the moment. And there was an undercurrent of jealousy to many of them. Deidara and Hidan had found romantic love, twisted as it sometimes was, in one another. While many of the others had found a love of the friendly kind, the only others in the group that had found romantic love were Konan and Nagato, who hid their relationship, particularly as it wasn't very physical at all.

No, they were S-rank criminals. They had hearts of stone.

Or, at least, they should.

o.o.o.o.o

Two months. Two months of the unwanted sex change forced upon them.

They'd grown used to it. They weren't particularly _happy_ as they were, but they could now deal with what their bodies were doing without their permission and no longer spent every waking moment thinking about how utterly wrong it all was.

Some of them spent as much time as possible searching for a cure. A cure that Deidara and Hidan were convinced would come on its own as the three months wore out. The idea that it was the drunken actions of a couple of gods was laughable, though they mostly avoided and ignored the theory due to Hidan's impassioned rants whenever the subject was touched upon.

Sasori, on the other hand…

"Leave me alone."

No.

"…"

You're being a little rude, you know.

"As are you."

You speak!

"…"

You don't like me much, do you?

"I have not a single positive thought regarding you."

I helped you save your brat, though.

"…I have very few positive thoughts regarding you."

Score! That means you like me! Or at least, don't completely hate me…

"Leave."

But—

"Go bother someone else."

But the readers love to see you get tortured!

"…"

Sasori?

"…"

You're giving me the silent treatment, aren't you?

"…"

*sigh* Goodbye~! Goodbye… GOODBYE~!

"Leave!"

Goodbye!

o.o.o.o.o

"Mrow."

Tobi looked up from where she was reading a book on the couch to see Deidara walk in, Sasori following her in with a disgruntled look on his face.

The interesting thing was that Deidara had something in her arms.

"Tobi, look who Kisame finally let out of his room!"

Something in Tobi _clicked_, and…

"Maia-chan!" She squealed, jumping up and rushing over to Deidara. The little gray kitten, still so small, stared up at the masked nin with wide orange eyes. Tobi squealed again, wordlessly this time, scooping up the little kitten into her arms, squishing Maia into her rather ample bosom.

Deidara squealed too, and the two women hugged, jumping up and down in excitement.

"Would you please cease your—?"

"Danna, come hug the kitten!"

"Sasori-sama, come hug Maia with us!"

He inwardly groaned in defeat and had to resist quite a bit to keep himself from slamming his head against something. A concussion may have sounded rather endearing, but he no longer had a brain to slam into the walls of a skull he did not have to induce the concussion, so the only thing that would be accomplished would be a possible crack in his wooden head.

"So cu~te!"

Kami d*** it.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Sasori hates me. It's so fun.**

**Didja forget about Maia-chan? Didja? Didja didja didja?**

**If anyone has the urge to draw gender-bent Akatsuki (barring Pein and Deidara, who are both male in it) in Steam Punk, Gaslight Fantasy, or just plain old Victorian era clothing, please do so. I want to see it done.**

**I find it rather annoying when an author spends several paragraphs doing nothing but describing a person's outfit. Especially when it's for multiple people, where it can stretch on for **_**pages**_**. If it's just a line or two (a smooth latex spy suit with pouches all over; jeans and a red t-shirt, offset by a wild headband), then I'm not too bothered, but when it goes on for **_**ages**_**… I've only done it once, for Agent Diamond in AK:PCO, which was specifically designed to parody such actions in other stories. If you're still wondering what I mean: think about how Tara describes Enoby's outfits in ****My Immortal****. Okay, you got that? Do you really want to see that level of detail for something as complicated as **_**Steam Punk?**_

**With all the research I've done, I really want to try wearing a custom made corset now…**

**Next chapter will be twenty-five. That marks chapter ten of this massive sex-change arc. It **_**will**_** end in the next chapter. And then we get to Shippuden, which will be different from canon, very different. If you think you can guess what'll happen, go ahead and guess. If you can guess something specific and large enough, I may give you an omake. I'll even give you a hint for the return of Mamoru: blood bags. Think you can figure it out?**

**We're almost at two hundred reviews. We could've been there last chapter, but that kind of flopped. I only got three reviews, when just four more would have pushed us over the edge. C'mon and review, yeah?**

**I've also found that I'm extremely prone to writing long author's notes.**

**Ja ne, **

**Phoenix**


	25. A Puppet and a God

"_Wow, it's been like six years since six years ago! That's, like, this many!" *holds up fingers and looks at them in wonder*_

_- …Sometimes I wonder about my class…_

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara yawned, rubbing his eyes as he walked slowly into the kitchen, following the smell of pancakes. There may have even been the smell of chocolate chips in there too, but that wasn't very likely, since most of Akatsuki preferred blueberries.

"Or, maybe," Hidan broke into his thoughts, strong arms wrapping around him and pulling him into a voluptuous chest. "It's part of your birthday breakfast."

Deidara blinked, his sleepy mind working through the information as Hidan rested a chin on his head from behind.

Wait, so yesterday had been the fourth…

"Happy birthday, blondie." Hidan chuckled, and Deidara felt the vibrations from behind.

Deidara's eyes widened as it hit him. "I'm nineteen now!"

*Slow clapping.* Great job, Dei. Great job.

o.o.o.o.o

Another month ticked by, but this one passed without incident. Deidara and Hidan sat in bed one night—fully clothed, to their disappointment, though they understood why it was almost necessary—waiting for the inevitable change back. At around midnight, Deidara sighed and left the room to go to his own. Both fell into an uneasy sleep, and Deidara knew that Sasori had stayed awake as well, keeping watch because, even though he didn't _want_ to believe in the gods that Hidan explained about, he had to admit that there was at least some stock in the oddities he spouted.

Case in point: me.

"I hate you."

No, you don't. Besides, you'll barely see me at all soon!

"…"

You're really easy to irritate, you know that?

"Are you lying about leaving?"

Maybe. It really depends on how I feel. I'll probably leave you alone for the most part, but I'll still barge in occasionally if I feel the need to.

"Joy." Oh, the sarcasm he spoke with.

Of course, at this point I'll withdraw from this directionless conversation, and go to _actually_ writing the _actual_ story.

Sasori stayed in the room, awake the whole time, working in a puppet. He only needed several hours of sleep per week, and he'd already filled that quota. Besides, if Hidan and Deidara were this convinced that something would happen, it would be better to stay alert, if only just in case.

"Well, you're right about that."

Sasori froze where he was, and slowly turned.

There was a man there, staring at him with a near-condescending smile on his face. He sat on the bed that was technically Sasori's, legs crossed, with one elbow resting on his knees, the fist of that same arm propping up his head on his chin.

His hair was light blue, lighter than the sky, and his eyes were a green that was reminiscent of grass, a thoroughly unnatural color. His clothing was loud, a bright, floral-patterned shirt worn over a white tank top, and khaki shorts with sandals below the waist. And around his neck there was…

Jashin's grin widened. "Yo."

Sasori closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and opened up his eyes again. The man, no, the supposed _god_ was still there.

D*** it.

"You are—"

"Jashin. Surprised?" A blue eyebrow quirked up, offset by the smirk on the surprisingly young face.

"You… do not look as one would imagine a god of pain and suffering to appear." Sasori stated hesitantly.

Jashin snorted. "Right. And what did you expect, then?"

Sasori stayed silent.

The god rolled his eyes. "Yeah, thought so. Besides, that is _totally_ not what I'm the god of."

Sasori raised an eyebrow, still not believing what his puppet eyes were telling him. "No?"

"No! It's all propaganda, I tell you!" Jashin threw his arms up in the air in mock outrage, but dropped them with a chuckle a second later. "Nah, there's three gods, and our titles are just which realm we're in charge of. Shinigami runs the realm of the dead; ergo, he's the god of the dead. Kami runs the realm of the living; ergo, she's the goddess of the living. I run the realm of the demons; ergo, I'm the god of the demons. Of course, the realms used to have different names back when there was still a full cycle, but that kind of warped after the destruction of the Juubi, so…"

Well, Sasori thought, at least it all fit with what he had heard Deidara and Hidan discuss on occasion. That didn't necessarily _mean_ anything, but it was certainly interesting.

"And you are speaking with me… why?" To be fair, Sasori's question was a decent one.

Jashin leaned back a little, turned, and lay with his back to the headboard. "A good question. Mostly, I suppose, as a favor to a friend, and as a way to get a little help for the future."

Sasori crossed his arms, continuing to stare at the supposed god.

Jashin sighed. "Alright, look at it this way. This dimension has issues. If I want to get these issues fixed, I need people down here to take care of it. Hidan's great, and the fact that Deidara's willing to help out once in a while is great and all, but… well, neither of them is the most level-headed of people, you know? And having another person to help out is always appreciated."

"I'm not going to do those ridiculous rituals." Sasori stated outright.

Jashin smiled weakly. "Unnecessary, and they wouldn't do anything at all to help, besides. No, I just want you to keep an eye on them for now, maybe keep them from doing anything too stupid. S***'s about to hit the fan, so… Just do what Hidan says once things come to a head in a couple of months."

"Your advice is to follow Hidan's orders." Sasori repeated doubtfully. "Are you _trying_ to insult my intelligence?"

"Let me rephrase that." Jashin backtracked. "Follow his directions if he can explain how and why he's doing it, or at least makes an effort to and it vaguely makes sense."

Sasori raised an eyebrow, and then sighed and shook his head. "Fine. I suppose that if he can explain himself, I will give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Best I can hope for with just normal persuasion, I suppose." Jashin shrugged, swinging back around so that his feet were flat on the floor again.

Sasori stared at the god who, despite his young appearance, also seemed remarkably haggard. "Why else are you here? If you really are who you claim to be, then you are like here to remove the recent… curse."

"Curse?" He chuckled. "Ah, Kami would probably be happy to hear that. Her idea, drunk as she was, was to punish you all. And before you ask," He held up a hand as Sasori opened his mouth to snidely ask another question. "She was drunk because she had just gotten into a deity-level argument with the Shinigami about something. And yes, Kami is a woman. Aesthetically, at least, she is. I mean, we're gods, so having an actual physical sex isn't really… never mind. Point is, yes, I'm here to reverse things."

Sasori nodded. "Deidara will be disappointed."

"Because of the cat features?" Jashin actually chuckled, and suddenly seemed even younger with the whole-hearted laughter. "I suspected as much. Here."

He pulled a scroll out of his pocket, and smirked as he tossed it to Sasori. "I figured she may enjoy that."

Sasori eyed the scroll in his hand with distaste. "And this is…?"

"Well, if the others ever miss the sex change, they always have that lovely little jutsu that you and Deidara stole from Orochimaru, so I decided I might as well have one made for her too. It got relegated to one of the interns, so we didn't really lose any efficiency."

Sasori didn't bother commenting on the fact that the gods had interns. The information was interesting and slightly confusing, but on the whole irrelevant.

"I can't really make the final decision on the wall, though." Strangely enough, he actually seemed apologetic. "That's Phoenix, completely, so… just deal with it. She'll let up on it soon enough."

Sasori nodded, not trusting himself to speak on the matter. He asked a question that had been bothering him for several minutes. "Why did you come to talk to me? Why not Deidara and Hidan? The latter in particular, I imagine, would be glad to see you."

Jashin shrugged. "He doesn't need me. Deidara may, but I trust Hidan to take care of her."

"I wasn't under the impression that most religions condoned homosexuality. I was also under the impression that most priests were supposed to be celibate."

Jashin sent him a funny look. "Why would I care? It makes him happy, it's not impeding his duties, and it keeps him from trying to find a way to actually die because he feels like there's nothing to live for. _I'm_ certainly not going to judge."

Sasori frowned a little, but accepted the words for what they were.

"Now, it's time I got to my actual night off, so I'll see you when I see you, hopefully never." Jashin nodded and stood, turned and left.

He dissolved where he stood, disappearing like a ghost in the night.

A high pitched female giggle, strange and terrifying, echoed after him.

o.o.o.o.o

"You handled that pretty well, Shin-chan."

Jashin glanced over at his drinking buddy for the night, an old friend, a small one. "I guess. It wasn't all that weird, really."

"Meh. You win some, you lose some." The redheaded girl shrugged, spinning around in her seat to lean back against the bar. "I think it would have been better if you made him cry. I would have."

"It's _Sasori_. Crying is just… and besides, that's your plan for everything. Making it either cry or bleed is _always_ your plan."

"Exactly!" The girl threw back her head and laughed. Three seconds later, her leg was out to the side and there was a hole in the wall from the body that had smashed through.

"Any of you other a**holes think you can cop a feel?" She yelled out at the rest of the patrons. There was utter silence. "Didn't think so!"

"Once again, I wonder why I even associate with you." Jashin muttered, cradling his face in his palm. His hand shot out and grabbed the girl's arm as she tried to leave so as to pick another fight. "Sit _down_, Diamond."

"Aw…"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara woke slowly, yawning. The feeling of her blankets sliding off was warm and expected. The lack of the by now familiar twitching of ears and a tail was not.

She blinked and reached up with one hand to run her fingers through her hair. The expected resistance from her ears—which had made doing her hair up the normal way an utter _b****_ of a chore—was not there.

Her eyes shot open, and she spun around in bed a little, eyes finally landing on the figure she had been searching for.

"Sasori-no-Danna!" Deidara squealed, jumping out of the bed. "Do you hear her? Do you hear the voice?"

Sasori blinked, and then a slow smile, a grin, a _smirk_ by the end, curled across his face. "No. I don't."

And then he did the creepiest thing he possibly could have done.

He laughed.

Maia, in Kisame's room, shot under the bed as a strange bolt of fear struck her from the unnatural air hanging about after the abnormal action.

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan blinked as he came awake, very aware that something was very different.

He blinked awake, raised the blanket, and glanced down.

He blinked again, and grinned.

"F*** YEAH!"

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan's yell brought the rest of Akatsuki awake. One by one, they realized the change, and one by one, they felt as if a weight had been taken off of their shoulders. They had felt the weight before, but had never realized quite how heavy it had been. Jubilant laughter rang through the base, and Tobi actually rushed into Deidara's room and started to hug her.

Then Pein's voice boomed out across them all, calling them down to a meeting.

o.o.o.o.o

"Now that this farce has finally worn off—"

Deidara frowned. Farce? Wasn't that a little… She sighed and shook her head a little. No use dwelling on it.

"—I will be assigning you to go back to your prior targets. Seeing as we lost track of several Jinchuuriki in the interim of this recent problem, you will have to regain information on where they are. Of the remaining ones…" He shuffled the papers on his desk, picking one up.

"Deidara, Sasori, I want you two to go after the Ichibi."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: …Don't you just love me?**

**Okay, so, about Diamond… the chances of her showing up again more than once (during the final chapter and the epilogue) are minimal. In other words, this was just a minor cameo. Seriously, she was in a scene less than two hundred words long. If anyone reading this does NOT know who Diamond is, then take a look at ****AK:PCO****, ****ACF****, or ****RaH****. If you're **_**still**_** confused, and don't feel like ignoring it (which is always a viable option), then you can tell me through a review on one of the other stories, written in a way that proves that you actually read it. If you don't, I'll just redirect you there anyway.**

**Don't worry, I haven't given up on irritating Sasori yet. It's just too much fun, and far too popular, for me to get rid of it.**

**Next chapter: Shippuden!**


	26. With Hand and Sand as Red as Blood

**A/N: Occasionally, I find myself realizing that I need to go back and add curses into Hidan's lines, or the grunt to Deidara's. It's just hard for me to write it since it doesn't come naturally the way it does to most teens. It's a bit weird like that.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_I've just been friending all these inner-city kids. I just went to the profile of one of my ghetto cousins from Iowa, and friended, like, all seven hundred of his classmates…"  
"Did you just say 'one of my ghetto cousins from Iowa'?"  
"There's an inner-city in Iowa?"_

_- Paraphrased, but… dear god, my class has weird conversations… the first one is from the usual guy. The second is the guy that sits next to me. The third I can't remember._

o.o.o.o.o

One day was all Pein gave them to prepare. It was enough, particularly for the time that Deidara needed for one very special thing…

"Love you," Hidan muttered.

He lay on his back in bed, and Deidara lay on top of him, her face pressed into his chest, her hands splayed across his pectorals.

"Mm… love you too." She sighed, one hand lazily using a finger to trace lazy swirls around his chest.

"I'm glad we could get back to this. I mean, I didn't _hate_ being a woman as much as some of those other f***ers did, but when it comes to sex…"

"You prefer intercourse where you have a d***." Deidara callously summarized.

"…Yeah."

Deidara giggled softly and scooted closer under the covers to get a kiss. "Mm. Can't say it wasn't fun, though."

"Once or twice, maybe." Hidan grumbled, his arms wrapping around Deidara's waist to hug her to his chest. "But it's not right, not for me."

"I know." Deidara let out a small noise like a coo as she nuzzled her face into the crook of Hidan's neck. "At least you're back now, and if you ever miss it…"

"Yeah…"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara knew two things would be a problem if he got to the Ichibi without thinking through his options.

He couldn't go as a girl. At least, not aesthetically. While his fighting ostensibly didn't change between his male and female forms, the clothing involved did. The Lolita dresses, while pretty, easy to move in, and good for hiding weapons, could be a liability in a large-scale fight. The skirt could easily be caught, or be caught on fire, if the opponent was good enough to hit Deidara in the first place. In a small-scale fight, the difference was negligible, but in a large-scale one… And most other feminine clothing tended to be tight and inflexible, or in most kunoichi's cases, unnecessarily revealing.

The other thing was Deidara's tendency to overestimate himself, or underestimate his opponent, his tendency to taunt opponents, his tendency to take his time. He _knew_ he had this problem, and rarely did anything to fix it due to generally being a completely different level from his, well, his _victims_.

He'd have to try to get this fight over with as quickly as possible. If he could undermine his opponent's confidence and moral standing then… okay, that would work. Saving the world by destroying the… yeah, that could get him off-balance enough for Deidara to pull off a few sneak attacks. And if he randomly did a switch from female to male a minute into the fight…

'Kay, he was ready for this.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara sat on a large clay bird in the middle of Sunagakure, primped and preened. Legs crossed, hands folded in her lap, chin held high, she sat looking pretty on top of the Kazekage's office.

It was a viable confusion tactic, as the barely-there expression on said Kazekage's indicated.

"Why are you here?"

"Well, that was rude." Deidara sniffed, turning her head slightly away from her opponent.

The man's, _boy's_, eyes narrowed. "You are, by all accounts, an Akatsuki member. Manners are not currently my top priority in dealing with you."

Deidara's head tilted to the side, sweet and innocent. "Such a rude man. Well, you really _should_ come with me, you know?"

"I doubt that such an action would be conducive to the continued well-being of my village." Panda eyes narrowed.

"It would be far more helpful than a fight. I heard you were close to the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki. I almost killed him, you know. Do you really want me to try something _here_? I could end up killing _everything_." She tossed in a small smile, demure and slightly coy, as she stared at Gaara.

"You would do the same should I simply submit."

"Ah, ah, ah!" Deidara shook a finger in his direction. "Don't assume a _thing_. You know what it's like for someone to assume things about you. Don't be a _hypocrite~!_ Besides, if you assume, you make an a** out of you and me."

Gaara raised a nonexistent eyebrow at the sudden cursing of the girl who was, up until then, acting like a lady, albeit a childish one.

"What do you want?" The question was blunt and seemed unfeeling, though the small burn that Deidara saw in those sea-foam eyes gave away just how important the question was to him.

"The demon you carry, oh vessel of Shukaku." She stepped down from her perch, uncaring of the sand that had suddenly sprung up on all sides, preparing for a fight. She ignored the hovering granules by the man she was to fight, and walked around to the other side of the bird, beyond the Kazekage's line of sight.

_He_ came back.

Deidara grinned at the Kazekage, no longer sweet and coy, but scathingly condescending and roguish. "You see, the world is falling to pieces, and I can't quite fix it if you don't comply, un."

"Forgive me for considering that a lie." The two men began to circle each other, one smirking, the other wary, and both ready to jump into battle at the slightest hint of provocation.

"The destruction of the Juubi caused growing instability in this dimension _eons_ ago, and it's only gotten worse since then, un." Deidara did a little hop-skip, enjoying the twitch that Gaara made to ward against any incoming attack. "I can't help Hida-kun fix it without helping Akatsuki with its eventual goal, un."

Gaara said nothing, no doubt hearing the hisses that came from Shukaku.

"Well, sand boy? Do feel up to the task, un?" Deidara leered.

"Leave my village." Sand came from everywhere, and Deidara leapt back up onto his bird and flew up.

"Leave _now_."

o.o.o.o.o

"Was that a C4?" Sasori hissed as Deidara landed next to him with the Kazekage in the bird's mouth.

"I thought it was a good occasion, and used it after I kind of panicked. No time, un, run, run, run!" Deidara whispered, grabbing Gaara's unconscious body and following his own orders towards the door.

Sasori rolled his eyes, but urged Hiruko along behind his blonde partner. "You seem worried."

"There's a phantom pain in my arm, un." Deidara muttered. "Like it should be missing, but it isn't."

Sasori frowned inside. That was… odd.

A sudden shout behind the two nukenin caught their attention. "Uh… you can take care of this, Danna."

"With pleasure."

o.o.o.o.o

Three days later, Naruto glared around at the complete wasteland that was the portion of Sunagakure that had been caught in the giant blast. There were no survivors. Even the town that the last fight had taken place in had at least had a few children survive. Here…

His fist clenched as he thought back to what had happened to Kankuro. He was nearly dead when they got there, and only Sakura's abilities at healing had saved him.

Akasuna no Sasori. And from what else Kankuro had said, Bakuhatsu no Deidara as well.

All those people, dead again.

Akatsuki had gone too far, and if Naruto didn't stop them, there would probably be a third massacre occurring under the blond bomber's mad hand.

He had to be taken down at all costs.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara grinned and winked over at Hidan's hologram, which winked back. They'd just finished up the sealing, and as well as this first sealing had gone (it should have been the third or fourth, but they had lost track of the Yonbi, Gobi, and Nanabi during the sex change mess).

"If I may make a request?" Sasori spoke up. Pein sent a nod in his general direction. "Could we have someone prepared to come as backup should we require it?"

Though no eyebrow could be seen to raise, the shape of the ripple-covered eyes changed in such a way that the motion was implied. "Why would you need it?"

Hiruko's tail whipped through the air. "After the battle with the Gama-Sennin and the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, Konoha will be on further guard against the organization. With the close connection that the two villages have, particularly the rumored connections between their Jinchuuriki, it is very likely that they will have sent reinforcements. And knowing Konoha, they'll have sent the Jinchuuriki's team, which means not only the Kyuubi to contend with while low on power, but the copy-nin as well."

Pein's head drifted down a little in thought, and then he nodded. "Tobi, Zetsu, prepare to use your travel to get to the area with extra people if necessary. Reinforcements will be…"

"Hidan and Itachi." Deidara interrupted at the lull that signified Pein's thinking. Heads turned to him. "They've fought the Jinchuuriki before, they know his moves. And we can keep other people's secrets, well, secret. Kakuzu will still be a complete surprise, and Kisame won't be as much of a—"

"No."

Deidara blinked. "What?"

"No, I won't send Itachi and Kisame. They can send those special possession clones to stall the team. If those fail, then Tobi will come to fetch you and Sasori while Zetsu distracts them."

Deidara mulled it over, and then sighed and nodded. It wasn't as though he could argue it, anyway. Pein's orders were law. And not a petty law either, they were more like the laws of physics. You could break them, but not without considerable effort and punishment.

"Understood, Pein-sama."

o.o.o.o.o

S***! S***, s***, s***, s***, s***, s***, s***, s***, s***!

Deidara ducked and dove as the kid _lobbed_ one of those swirly chakra balls at him.

What the h***? Where did that even come from? And how did he survive having a C1 bird detonated less than a foot from his head?!

Maybe those weird markings, the orange things around his eyes, had something to do with it. And his eyes… Deidara spurted a bit of chakra into his scope, and confirmed it. The kid's eyes were yellow, with the pupils being strange bars, like a frog's. This wasn't the influence of the Kyuubi, this was something else entirely.

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto tore after the pyromaniac that had hair and eyes way too much like his own natural coloring. He'd had a month to learn from Jiraiya after healing from the battle, even if Jiraiya only had one arm now. That didn't make him any less deadly, of course. If anything, he was even deadlier because of how people would underestimate him because of the missing limb. He explained that he now realized just how bad of a situation it was, and that he was going to teach Naruto a technique, a new one, that was meant to go hand in hand with the strange, opening-riddled taijutsu style that he'd been teaching for months.

Naruto batted away another attack with a nature-enhanced hand, pouring on yet more speed to get the fight over with before he ran out of juice.

With Sage Mode, he could win this thing.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara glanced up for barely a second, and then back at the kid. Sage Mode? He'd never heard of it, though the words 'nature-enhanced' implied that it had something to do with, obviously, nature and the chakra that was in it.

Maybe someone else would kno—whoa!

He dodged a boulder that came flying towards him. Where had that come from?!

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori dodged yet another chakra-enhanced punch from the pink-haired girl, wondering how it was that she hadn't run out of chakra yet. And the fact that the girl was being aided by his _grandmother_ of all people, that was infuriating.

_DUCK!_

Sasori didn't think, he just ducked. Then his thoughts caught up to him. "No!" He whispered to himself, or more likely, at the author. "No, you were supposed to be gone!"

Hiruko's tail whipped through the air, sending a spread of poison-covered senbon at the girl. Where was Chiyo-baa?

_Behind you._

He spun, lashing out, and managed to prevent an attack from hitting him. What was going on?

_I want to keep you alive, moron. Be glad you're only hearing the italics._

"Joy." Sasori growled. Great. Just great. Less than a week and she was back.

_For the duration of the fight, not forever, you angry little puppet_.

He ignored her, as usual. If she gave him hints to survive, he'd take them, but he'd ignore the rest.

Isn't he showing such wonderful gratitude?

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara cursed, flipping backwards through the air as he tried to get out of the way of yet another overpowered spinning ball of death. This was bad. They _needed_ backup now. He could even see the other team, the one with the Hyuuga and the eyebrow guys, coming to try and capture him. Or kill, and the latter was _definitely_ more likely.

C0 was out of the question, and he didn't have enough chakra to use anything above C1. And C1 was doing nothing since the Jinchuuriki was immune for some ridiculous reason called Sage Mode, and the copy-nin had somehow started diffusing the bombs midair as they came to hit him. Deidara had sent off a different bird with the Kazekage's corpse several minutes ago, and—!

What the h*** was that?! He tried to dodge, and suddenly found that his elbow was gone.

It was _gone_.

He looked at his empty sleeve.

And turned full eyes on his enemy.

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan stared at the ceiling, and then shivered and turned to Pein. "Uh… we should _really_ send someone for them. Like, now."

"Why?"

"Well, Deidara just lost an arm, and puppet's f***er's been reduced to taking advice from the author." Hidan explained, actually a little nervous. "Seriously, just get them out of there, please."

Pein turned to look at him, blinking. Had Hidan just said please?

…Well, it wouldn't hurt to _check_…

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara very happily noticed Zetsu in the corner of his eye, but realized that he was _not_ going to get out of this that easily. No, he needed a distraction…

He looked at the Jinchuuriki. The eyes were fading, and he was out of scrolls (whatever those scrolls had _done_), so he was out, but the taijutsu team and the copy-nin were still fairly fresh, and Deidara hadn't slept in three days, and was down to one arm, so—

"The body's three kilometers in that direction, un." He shouted, pointing towards where he'd sent the Kazekage's corpse.

This one sentence was enough to throw them off, if only for a second. And then they were moving again, and Deidara realized that he needed something more before Tobi got there, something to stall.

He laughed, deep and cynical. He was a good actor; he had to be after all those years. A real-sounding laugh was no trouble at all. "You think you're in the right, don't you, un?"

"What?" The Kyuubi brat was the one who asked the question.

"You think," Deidara licked his dry lips a little nervously, though he managed to make it look slow and intentional, patronizing, almost. "That you are all the _good guys_, un."

"Of course we are!" The whiskered kid was shouting again.

"Are you? Do you know the whole story, un?" Deidara taunted. He had their attention, so now he just had to keep them occupied until Tobi got there. And if he held the truth in there, made it a true confession that they would take as a lie, see as the finest of sarcasm, well, then it would be even better. "What if, by capturing the Jinchuuriki, I'm actually trying to save the world, un?"

The sound of grinding teeth came from several directions.

"What if I'm trying to undo what the Rikudo Sennin f***ed up, un?" Deidara leered again. Okay, he could run with this, if only for a few minutes.

"The Rikudo Sennin was the founder of ninjutsu, he—"

"Designed a whole new way to kill people, right? Isn't it all just wonderful, un?" Deidara laughed again. "Creator of ninjutsu, destroyer of the Juubi, and he's the man that may have caused the world to end, though that hasn't happened, un. Not yet."

"The world is _not_ ending." The copy-nin glared at Deidara.

Deidara smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Really? How would you know, un? Hey!"

He made a little hopping motion, coming closer to the Konoha nin. "Did you know that Jashinism came about as a result of the Juubi's split, un? Every sacrifice made was to keep the world from ending. Do you want to help keep the world spinning, un? I know a priest that can still make the sacrifices, you know. The only one left, at this point, un."

"You're insane." The girl had said it, the one with the buns on her head. She looked disgusted with Deidara.

The man waved his half-arm through the air. "I've got half an arm and barely notice it, darling, un. I hear voices, and fire is one of the most beautiful things in the world to me, un. I welcome Death and then shy away from it. I'm mad, I know, un. Sorry, I've been off my meds for the past few days. Can't exactly go to the medicine cabinet while I'm sealing up a bijuu, un."

A strange look crossed several of their faces. The Hyuuga was the one that spoke up. "You're on psychological medication?"

"_Duh_." Deidara rolled his eyes and put his remaining hand on his hip. "What did you think, un?"

"Tobi thinks Deidara-sempai should take his medicine again!"

Deidara slowly turned to see Tobi sitting on the ground, cross-legged, with one hand waving in the air like a kindergartener. He turned back to the Konoha nin, and gestured in a sarcastically grand manner to the man on the ground. "Tada, un. The magical Tobi, everyone."

"Oh!" There was a noise, as though he had stood up. "Tobi is happy to meet all of Deidara-sempai's new friends!"

Deidara rolled his eyes as Tobi came up and put an arm around him. "And I have to deal with this every day, un. Still, it has its good sides." He grinned."Bye, un."

They disappeared into Tobi's eye.

o.o.o.o.o

Zetsu found a hand with a mouth on the ground. "So… do we take it? **Of course we do.**"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Shippuden wasn't as hard to write as I thought. I do have to say something before I go on, though: I'm not rereading the manga to make sure I get things right. By only using what I vaguely remember, I can make sure that I don't copy things and that I'm more original than other authors. Plus, it's faster this way. I may check things on the wikia if I need a bit of a refresher, but overall…**

**Yes, I let Sasori survive. But! You didn't see him at the end of the fight. You saw him during the middle, when he was still holding his own.**

**Now, for the omake. The 200****th**** reviewer was ****Crystal M. Key****, who asked for Maia to try eating Kisame for being a fish. Now, I actually made it a large part of her characterization in my head that Maia's one of the only cats that **_**doesn't**_** attack Kisame on sight for being fishy (oh, the horrible puns), but I managed to twist it around to make it work.**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara looked down at Maia as he fried the fish for dinner. He made a little noise, shunting her away slightly with his foot. "No, I already gave you your food."

Maia continued to stare up at him, and Deidara broke. "Fine, I'll give you some more tuna once I'm done with dinner."

The eyes, those wide orange eyes, continued to drill their way into the back of his head. He finished up quickly, still taking enough care to not burn the food, and turned to find that Maia was still watching him. He rolled his eyes. "Alright, alright."

He opened a small tin of tuna, and turned away from the counter to empty it out into Maia's food bowl. Unfortunately, the bowl had recently been put away into the dishwasher, so he needed a new one. Without putting the tin down, he pulled a chair over to the side, cursing his short stature all the while, and pulled himself up to some of the cupboards. He fumbled around one-handed, and then a voice from behind caught his attention.

"What are you doing?"

Deidara, turning to answer, lost his balance and fell forward. He caught his balance easily. He did not catch the tuna at all.

Deidara looked up, and saw Kisame covered in tuna flecks and fishy smelling oil. He was glaring at the younger man with pursed lips and narrow eyes… or he was just trying to keep anything from getting into his eyes or mouth.

"Um… oops?"

Kisame sighed and closed his eyes completely, blindly reaching out for the drawer that held the kitchen towels. Unfortunately…

"Deidara, why is there a tiny tongue licking my face? I swear, if that's one of your hands…"

"It's Maia." Deidara quickly interrupted, and then smiled in a winning manner, despite the fact that Kisame couldn't see it. "She looks adorable!"

And she did.

For the rest of the day, Kisame dealt with Maia trying to climb up onto his shoulder and lick away the scent of tuna that still clung to him.

Adorably, of course.


	27. Aftermath

"_It was like fart jokes and prosthetic noses, when it could have held itself with a little more dignity."_

_- The usual guy, about the new Hobbit movie._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara collapsed to his knees as Tobi materialized the two of them into the base. The first thing his eyes landed on was the half destroyed body of Sasori.

"Danna!" He lunged forward, but his knees caught on his cloak, as he was still on the floor, and he barely caught himself with is remaining arm.

"I'm fine, brat. They didn't get the vital parts, and I can rebuild the rest." Sasori placated his younger partner. Then he noticed Deidara's arm… or lack of one. His eyes narrowed.

"What happened to your arm, brat?" He demanded.

Deidara glanced off to the side, uncomfortable. "I got caught by some weird technique of Hatake's, un. It… actually, it felt a lot like using Tobi's teleportation technique, un." His tone changed towards the end, wondering aloud and strangely questioning.

The blond looked over at the strange man in the orange mask, questioning. "Do, do you think you could find it? Track where the technique went or something, un?"

Tobi frowned behind his mask, but nodded anyway, far more energetically and confidently than he was. "Tobi could try!"

Deidara grinned at him, one of the few genuine smiles that the blonde had sent Tobi's way in male mode. "Thanks, un."

"Tobi's going to go see if he can find Deidara-sempai's elbow now!" The lollipop man yelled just before disappearing into his eye.

"…Elbow?" Sasori looked at Deidara.

The blond shrugged. "The technique got my elbow, and my arm fell to the forest floor, un. Hopefully Zetsu can find it."

Sasori nodded, but he couldn't really berate Deidara too much. He'd lost a large number of puppets (not the Sandaime Kazekage, thankfully. He wouldn't be able to bear it if he lost that a**hole's corpse-puppet. It was his revenge, d*** it!), and at least a small part of each limb. After the last instance like this, with Orochimaru, Sasori had taken to keeping a spare body to use in case something like this happened again. The body wasn't anywhere near as well-equipped as his usual one, and his efficiency in a battle was greatly reduced, but it would be enough to get around and start fixing his puppets… and his battle-ready body.

Sasori, though, could fix himself up so that a person wouldn't be able to tell that there had ever been a battle at all. Deidara would likely be stuck with the scars forever.

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara, you f***in' moron!" Hidan's exclamation was accompanied by a hug to the man, boy, whatever in question.

"What?"

"I'm the one that's supposed to get dumba** injuries in a fight, not you!" Hidan stepped back and studied Deidara, eyes lingering on the missing arm. "When…?"

"When Tobi finds my elbow, un." Deidara answered the unfinished question. "He shouldn't be too long."

Hidan kept looking at Deidara for several more seconds, and then just sighed and pulled him into another hug. "Don't do it again."

"Brats!" Sasori's voice rang out. The two looked down the hall to see him walking towards them in a body that seemed halfway between that of a simplistic marionette and the one that Sasori usually used. There were lines on joints that Sasori's usual body didn't have, like at the mouth, but the body was also much more detailed and humanoid than even Sasori's other human puppets. The Glasgow Grin wasn't really all that disturbing anyway. "That's enough. Break it up."

"What do you need, un?" Deidara disentangled himself from Hidan.

"Tobi just showed up with your elbow and I've got your arm ready for reattachment. Kakuzu's going to be doing some stitches to keep it in place while I take care of the rest. There's going to be some scarring, but you can deal with that. Now let's go."

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara woke up slowly from the anesthetic, and first came aware of the sounds around him, even before opening his eyes. He mentally scanned through his body, glad to find that the only real pain was a dull ache at his reattached arm. Of course, he would probably start feeling a lot more than that when the drugs wore off, but that was a given.

Deidara opened his eyes a little, and the first thing he saw was the black fabric that he automatically recognized as that of an Akatsuki cloak. He looked to the side, technically up, and saw a pale, bare chest. A little further, and he started grinning, albeit weakly.

"Up yet, sleeping beauty?"

Deidara chuckled softly at Hidan's comment. He slowly shifted a little more, getting ready to sit up. "Not much of a beauty at the moment."

Hidan rolled his eyes. "Stop moving, moron."

"Wha—"

Thirty seconds later, Deidara was sighing to himself for not expecting Hidan to climb into the bed with him.

o.o.o.o.o

Pein frowned, looking over the papers. He needed to send out a few more people after the other Jinchuuriki—they had managed to track the Nanabi and Yonbi back down—and though he could send the immortals out, there was still the problem of Itachi's recent relapse and Sasori's demands that the younger man not leave. Itachi claimed he could leave and do the work he was supposed to do, but Sasori was the closest thing the Akatsuki had to an actual medic after Orochimaru had left (and no one had really trusted the Sannin to heal them). If Sasori said that Itachi was staying, then, by Kami, Itachi was _staying_.

Sasori couldn't leave either. His arsenal had been decimated, and had to be rebuilt almost completely, and that would take several months. He also had to stay to keep Itachi's condition from deteriorating further. That meant that Deidara, who would be cleared for missions in several weeks, had no partner.

Pein looked at the three profiles before him of who he could possibly put with Deidara for the next few missions.

Kisame, who wasn't going out on missions due to Itachi's current… incapacitation.

Konan, who was generally partnered with Pein himself, but that was negligible.

And Tobi, who was… Tobi.

Hm… Deidara got along fine with all three of them, but he _had_ worked with Tobi before. While the male side was derisive and scathing in concerns to the strange man, and the female side near-doting, Tobi and Deidara still worked well together. And Pein couldn't really think of any reason for Konan and Kisame to _not_ get along, so that was another decent partnership, at least temporarily.

"Zetsu, could you get these four for me?"

o.o.o.o.o

**Time: Approximately one week after the kidnapping of the Kazekage.**

**Location: Hokage's Office.**

Naruto fidgeted nervously as he watched Tsunade read over the reports. He had worked with Neji and Kakashi to remember what the blond man had said, and asked Gaara about what had happened in his conversation with the possibly deranged Akatsuki member. Afterwards, they had all talked to Sakura, and later Ino, to see which actions might have corroborated the claims regarding his mental stability, or lack thereof.

Tsunade put down the reports and rubbed at her temples. Shizune had confiscated the sake earlier, and it was showing. "This is… problematic."

"Which part?" Kakashi asked, not even looking up from his precious book.

"All of it, but I'm focused on your claims about this… Deidara?" She shuffled a few papers, coming across the compiled report. "If he really is a victim of circumstance and not a willing member of Akatsuki, then we're going to have to be careful around him. He's definitely a nukenin by choice, but if we can get him to defect from Akatsuki as well, and get him to Konoha…"

Naruto bit his lip. This guy, or girl, he still wasn't really sure on that part, was literally crazy. Not just eccentric-crazy, like Fuzzy-brows or his sensei, but actually crazy. Sakura had even done an analysis on the blood splatters left on several of TenTen's kunai. She had complained a little about the fact that it wouldn't be as accurate as she could have made it, because it wasn't a clean sample and the subject hadn't fasted, etcetera, but they had still had enough information to see a few things.

Like the fact that there was something wrong with his brain, some sort of chemical, that was making him crazy.

Like the fact that there was evidence of some sort of drug that had been in his system, though it had broken down enough that Sakura couldn't be sure how much of which drug had been there, and whether it had hurt or helped.

Like the fact that the imbalance could be responsible for at least two the mental illnesses that Deidara had implied.

Ino had gone further, dug through their memories to find signs of which mental illnesses might have been in place. She'd checked on the conversation, identifying the most probable disorders as pyromania, bipolarity, and schizophrenia. The latter two had matched up with the blood results, while the pyromania, they all assumed, was in full evidence with the many explosions that made up the majority of the man's fighting style.

Ino had pointed out a spot in Kakashi's (not Naruto's, not with the Kyuubi guarding the mind the way it did) donated memories, up in a special Yamanaka genjutsu created for just such a use, a point where Deidara hadn't paid as much attention, where he had repeatedly glanced at the sky and seemed to listen to something, mouthing words. She even pointed more closely at one point, where Deidara seemed to be whispering to himself and waiting for an answer, and then the sudden, jarring mood change when he had begun to laugh. It was faked at first, Ino noted, but there was also an element of truth to it later. Naruto could tell that it bothered her for some reason, but didn't ask.

Deidara was obviously a victim, and Naruto needed to save him.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Plot twists? You bet. And Konoha's definitely come to the wrong conclusion here, Naruto in particular. It's going to be fun to play off of that aspect of the plot: Konoha is so convinced that they're doing the right thing… poor them, once they realize that Deidara's pretty happy with where he is in life. I have no idea if the Yamanaka can actually create some sort of genjutsu/holographic projection of a person's memories, but that's what artistic license is for.**

**I got fanart! ****Supernatural Crossover Girl**** drew Hidan and Deidara with the kitty features for me. So go check that out, alright?**

**As always, look at the TvTropes page and do a rec if you can.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	28. Let's Go Flying

"_Water-skiing is sport dating back to biblical times. They just strapped themselves to Jesus' belt and had him run across the water."_

_- The usual guy. It's so wrong and heretical… but it's just so __**funny**__._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: There'll be more at the bottom, but here I just need to say this before you start: I don't watch the anime. I don't have the time for it. So I'm not including the canon Sanbi arc, since I only know what's up on the wikia… and that's not much. I'll be doing my own version of the conflict, which will focus on something quite a bit different than whatever Kabuto and that little kid were doing on the small screen…**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara scanned the scroll in her hands, sitting cross-legged on her bed, fluffy skirts hiding her legs and feet, only her knees poking out from underneath. Her tongue stuck out of her mouth in concentration, though only slightly, as her eyes flicked over the words, drinking in the information on the page. She had three days to make a plan… or at least decide on one with Tobi. Obito. Whoever.

Now, the Sanbi wasn't sealed into anyone, and they'd only recently managed to pinpoint the area where the chakra was coalescing in order to pick it up when it was fully formed. This meant that, while the power would be less controlled, there would be far more of it available for use by the target than with the Jinchuuriki. Deidara was rather sure that responding in kind would be ideal, but needed Obito's agreement on the idea. She put her chin in one hand, absentmindedly tapping her cheek with a finger. Hm…

She got up and left the room to find Tobi. Time to do some planning.

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto burst into Tsunade's office, slamming the doors. "Baa-chan!"

"Brat, don't—"

"You said it was important! Did you find Sasuke?!"

"No."

Naruto deflated at that, and took a seat in one of Tsunade's chairs without being asked. "Fine… what is it, then?"

Tsunade pulled a piece of paper out of the desk, covered in cramped, hurried ink. She pushed it over the table, and spoke as Naruto read it, recognizing the handwriting. "Jiraiya may be crippled now, but he's still got his spy circles up. Several Akatsuki have been spotted, but the important part is that we caught wind of two in particular…"

Naruto scanned the page. Let's see, Hoshigaki Kisame had been seen in Mizu no Kuni with a hidden partner of indeterminate gender, though definitely not Uchiha Itachi. The albino girl he'd fought, wait, no, it was a guy… okay, that was weird… Okay, _he_ had been spotted with someone near Kumogakure several days ago… and near Mizu no Kuni…

Deidara?

Naruto's head shot up to look at Tsunade, who stared back calmly. "They found him?"

"Her, apparently. At least for the moment." Tsunade took a sip of her drink. "Iwa issued a new Bingo book several months ago, and apparently this was one of their infiltration experts a few years ago that got a little too comfortable in cross-gender roles. Even they aren't sure about who 'she' really is, so both male and female pictures are printed on the bounty page."

Naruto nodded, but started bouncing his leg up and down in impatience. "So? What do you need me for?"

Tsunade leaned back slightly in her chair. "If you'd kept reading, you would have figured it out by now."

Naruto flinched slightly, but immediately raised the paper back to eye lev—

"Don't do it now that you've asked, brat, there's no point." Tsunade took another sip of sake. "Some Hyuuga tracked down what seems to be a nexus of corrosive chakra in the waters of a lake several dozen miles to the north. Since it's in the same direction as these two Akatsuki members are heading, and it's connected to the water, we think that it may be the Sanbi."

Naruto was sure that his heart was beating loud enough to be heard by the ninja walking by the Tower, down on the street.

"Your objectives will be to secure the Sanbi and attempt to make diplomatic contact with the Akatsuki member known as Deidara. You will lead the mission. You may take two four-man cells with you. If you succeed in this mission, you will undergo a field promotion to Chunin."

Tsunade fixed Naruto, the boy she almost considered a grandson, with a glare. "You d*** well better not fail this mission, brat."

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara sat on _his_ bird, leaning forward to lie against his mount's neck. Tobi sat sideways behind him, legs dangling towards the far-off ground.

"Deidara?" The voice was deep, controlled. And it wasn't calling him sempai.

Obito.

"What, un?"

"…How long until we arrive?"

Deidara snorted. "Well, at least you didn't say 'Are we there yet,' un."

"Don't tempt me."

It was a small joke, and a rather sardonic one, but it was a joke. Obito wasn't prone to making jokes when he was mature. Oh, he was plenty amusing when he was Tobi, but when he wasn't… well, he was just a _little_ bitter. You know, just a little.

Deidara did a few mental calculations, frowning slightly at a few far-off clouds. "We'd normally have another three and a half hours to fly there, un, but it looks like we'll be hitting a headwind in about 20 minutes, so… we're going to keep up this pace for another fifteen miles or so, un. I can't really tell when the wind is going to stop, so it may take us twice as long as it should after that, un."

Obito frowned, though Deidara couldn't really tell. "Will the wind make it dangerous?"

Deidara tilted his head to the sides, one way and then the other. "Eh, not too bad, un. Not much worse than just flying normally. You can stick yourself to the bird with chakra if you start feeling nervous, I guess, un. I'm the only one that can really set it off, so you don't really have to worry about accidentally blowing us up or something, un."

"Right." Obito quieted back down, returning to his previous activity of quietly contemplating the sky and land as they flew.

Deidara actually enjoyed the silence, contrary to what one might expect. Dealing with Tobi for so long had definitely reminded him of just how nice the silence could feel sometimes. Sure, Deidara would fill up the silence himself around Sasori, but that was because any silence near Sasori just felt awkward.

Well, that wasn't something to dwell on at the moment. Planning on how to deal with the oncoming headwind was more important.

o.o.o.o.o

_**Two hours later:**_

Deidara was an explosives expert. He was an artist. He was an infiltrator. He was an S-rank criminal.

He was _not_ a meteorologist.

"Deidara…" Obito actually growled this. It wasn't good-natured like his Tobi persona. It wasn't distanced and uncaring like his normal self. No, Obito just sounded p***ed.

"F*** off, un." Deidara snapped to the side, and then returned to his previous occupation of glaring out at the rain.

They were in a cave. It wasn't a very big cave, but it was large enough to lie down and sleep if they needed to spend the night, and high up off the ground, high enough that the rain didn't flood it. It was a good cave, just like Tobi was a good boy.

Of course, the fact that they needed to spend time in such a cave wasn't a good one, not at all. Deidara could tell how the weather worked well enough to predict the wind, and maybe a few thermals, but not much beyond that. This meant, of course, that while he had had no trouble predicting the headwind that would have presumably slowed them down, he had _not_ been able to predict the squalling storm that had started half an hour ago.

"How the h*** did you manage to miss this?" Obito demanded.

"Well, I don't see _you_ predicting the weather, un!" Deidara retorted. "I don't _know_ how to predict storms! I can't predict anything, un, just see if there's a wind coming up!"

"And you never thought that maybe you should work on that?" Obito's question was snide, sarcastic. Deidara grit his teeth and turned away. The cave filled with silence, the only noise being that of their breathing and that of the rain outside.

A small beeping noise broke the tension, and Deidara glanced down at his watch.

Obito didn't seem to agree. "Don't you dare, Deidara."

The blond glanced back over his shoulder, frowning. "It's not like we have anything to do, not with the weather the way it is, un."

Obito sighed, but didn't try to stop Deidara again. Several minutes passed, during which the older shinobi studiously ignored the sounds of rustling cloth and the pulse of chakra (despite the fact that the pulse sent shivers down his spine and phantom pains through his abdomen in remembrance), and the younger went about his, now her, business.

The rustling skirts were a familiar, almost comforting noise to Obito by this point. Deidara, for all his or her faults, was barely tolerable as far as Akatsuki members went, but actually seemed to care about 'Tobi.' It wasn't a strange thing, or at least, it shouldn't have been, but Obito couldn't help but feel a slight fondness for Deidara after all the time the two had spent together.

"Sometimes I wonder whose idea of art the rain fits."

Deidara's comment broke the silence in much the same way that her watch had earlier. Unlike the watch, however, the noise came not as a sudden and jarring moment, but as a fluid break in the silence, as if it had been meant to be broken.

"Oh?" Obito decided to try showing some token interest in the topic.

Deidara nodded. "It's always changing, and it never stays forever, un, and that's why I like it."

Obito noted the small verbal tic that popped out in the middle of the sentence. It stood out, since Deidara hadn't ever really used the tic when speaking in female mode before.

"But it always comes back, un. It's never gone forever, which is why Danna likes it, un."

Obito nodded slowly. He didn't particularly care about art, but it was a _relatively_ safe topic to speak about. "I guess I can understand that. Do you watch the rain with Sasori or something?"

Deidara smiled, and Obito couldn't help but be taken aback by the cheeriness that the girl exuded, not when he had seen all too well what Deidara was like when surly and even depressed. "Yeah…"

"Go to sleep, kid." At least he didn't call her brat like Sasori did. "I'll take first watch."

Deidara tilted her head to the side, but did just that anyway.

o.o.o.o.o

Obito didn't normally have trouble keeping his attention on his job when he was on night watch. It was silent and peaceful, and he didn't have to keep up the façade or make ridiculously convoluted plans (Madara's fault, that. He had always liked convoluted plans, and had demanded that Obito use them in his own. Obito had agreed just to get the old man to _shut up, already_). However, he had more than a little trouble once he heard a wail from behind him.

Obito turned around in a flash to see what was going on (most of the options that came to mind were too stupid to consider, and were promptly ignored anyway as he saw what was going on).

Deidara was still asleep, yes, but that sleep was by no means a peaceful one.

The girl wasn't tossing or turning, but she had a death grip in the sleeping bag, and her face was stuck in a mask of pain and even… was that fear? Small whimpering noises escaped from the back of her throat, not going through her mouth as her grit teeth and alternatingly bared and pursed lips prevented intelligible sounds from leaving.

Obito reached out a hand and put it on Deidara's shoulder, gently shaking her. The whimpers only grew louder, so he started talking as well, shaking slightly more forcefully, slightly more harshly.

Deidara woke up, but not with a gasp or a lurch. She froze instead, her eyes only slightly open, hardly slits. Her breathing slowed gradually, and her body relaxed, curling in on itself as her eyes squeezed back shut.

"Deidara?"

She made a small noise to indicate that she had heard, but no movement or real movement.

"Deidara, are you okay?" Obito's hand, still on Deidara's shoulder, squeezed slightly.

"No…" She muttered, ducking her head closer to her chest. She opened her eyes, though, and glanced up at Obito before down at her knees again.

"Nightmare?"

"Mm-hm." Deidara nodded slightly, eyes squeezing back shut.

"Here." Obito reached around with his other arm to slip it under her torso. "Come on, sit up. Have a drink or something."

Deidara complied, but still wasn't talking.

"What happened?" Obito asked, rubbing circles into Deidara's back to try and keep her calm, to relax her.

"Dead." She didn't elaborate.

"A little more information would be nice." Obito muttered, but Deidara still heard, apparently.

"Hidan, even though he can't, and Sasori-danna, and you, and Konan, and…" She gulped at the air and then buried her head back into her knees. She started whispering. "Dead, all of you. _Everyone_, dead."

Obito knew the feeling, knew the nightmare, though his rarely featured quite so many people. "Isn't death something beautiful to you?"

"Not _this_ kind of death."

"Ah." Obito dithered a bit, not sure what to do, but eventually followed his instincts and just pulled Deidara into a hug. It was to his surprise then, when she started hugging him back and bawling into his shirt.

Well… there were definitely going to be a few people asking questions once he got back to the base.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Deidara is so much easier to write in Woobie/WAFF moments when female. So much less stubborn and surly…**

**Anyone excited about the next chapter? Anyone happy about the fluffiness in this one?**

**So, I'm BACK! Why was I gone? Well, uh…**

**I haven't gone home at a reasonable time in over two weeks. I've been teching at the school play, and it's all I can do to stay awake. Particularly since any mistake I make can end with someone getting brained by a sewage pipe. It's over, now, but there was a span of two weeks where I was spending an average of fifteen hours a day at school.**

**I'm teetering on the edge of a C in several classes, and definitely failing Spanish. Sorry, but school comes first.**

**There's a choir thing that I can't explain to you at the moment, but it eats away at my free time.**

**Oh, and I went to the kinesiologist, got some blood work done, and found out the following:**

**I'm anemic (iron anemia, in particular).  
I have a severe Vitamin D deficiency, more than most people.  
I have hypothyroidism, secondary to a hypopituitary issue (makes me tired, makes me lose my hair, makes me forgetful, may be affecting my adrenal glands).  
I'm hypoglycemic (low blood sugar; makes me tired).  
I've got hypochlorhydria (low gastric acid, which means food is just sitting in my lower intestine and putrefying instead of being digested; so even if I eat enough, I can't digest it. Probably why I'm so skinny).  
I'm on the verge of being pre-diabetic (this is my fault. I eat a lot of candy because I'm always tired, supposedly due to the hypoglycemia, and that apparently caused my chances of contracting diabetes to go up).  
The joint pains might be caused by gout.  
I may have a chronic viral infection (which would explain why I always feel like my nose is stuffy in the winter).  
There are weird imbalances in my nutrient levels.**

**So, please… don't blame me too much for my recent problems, okay? I'm dealing. Or, at least, trying to deal. Cut me some slack, okay?**

**I actually finished a multi-chapter story. ****Dead Men Tell No Tales****, a collaborative fic with Dark-heika, recently finished up part one (only six chapters long, but the next two will be longer), and the sequel will be posted in about a month. It's not a very popular one for some reason, but I enjoyed writing it, so go look at it.**

**Also… fanart? Please?**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	29. Well, This is Awkward

"_It's because they don't use lowercase letters in Europe, and we have to conform to European standards. Why do you think Germans are so angry all the time?"_

_- The usual guy. I blame IB for this one._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Have to say this before the chapter starts:**

**Female and male are sex labels. They refer to whether a person is a man or a woman **_**physically**_**.**

**Feminine and masculine are gender labels. They refer to whether a person is a man or a woman **_**mentally**_ **and **_**emotionally.**_

o.o.o.o.o

"Finally."

"Oh, shut up. If it wasn't for my birds, we would have taken ten times longer to get here, un." Deidara playfully shoved Obito in the shoulder, giggling slightly as he fought to keep his balance.

"Stop that." The man in the incongruous orange mask growled as he regained his position on the giant clay bird's back. "And we could have just come through my eye's dimension."

Deidara pouted at him. "No, we couldn't, 'cause that means using your Mangekyo, and that makes your vision go bad."

"I've got an Eternal. Thank the real Madara for that." There was a pause of several seconds, and then he reached out and tapped Deidara on the head. "Stop pouting, girl."

"Tch." She turned away, with her arms folded and her nose in the air, and stepped as far away as she could in the rather tight space available to her on the bird. "You're like a living Deus Ex Machina, un."

"I am not…" Obito ended unsurely, as though he wasn't quite sure what he was protesting against. He quickly changed the subject. "Your verbal tic is showing up again."

Deidara blinked and turned around to look at him. "What do you mean?"

Obito shrugged, and seemed to collapse as he fell down to sit cross-legged on the clay. He leaned his head against one fist, putting the elbow down against his knee. "You don't usually say 'un' at the end of your sentences when you're female."

"Feminine, not female." Deidara corrected absentmindedly. "I guess I just haven't been paying attention to it, un. I mean, it's not like I ever did it consciously in the first place, and I did have to consciously repress it when I needed to, un, but… I guess I just got comfortable enough like this that I stopped caring about differentiating between the two sides as much as I used to, un?"

Deidara shrugged, clearly unsure as to the answer herself. Obito frowned behind his mask, but didn't make any move to question her further. He noticed her yawning and rolled his visible eye. "Tired already?"

She glared at him, a little more harshly than he had come to expect from darling little Dei-chan. "Shut up."

"Do you need me to get us the rest of the way?" He asked, slight concern coloring his tone. "If you're still dealing with the sleep loss because of the nightmare…"

Deidara frowned, eyes looking away from Obito and towards the far-off ground. She bit her lip, not answering.

Obito sighed and stood up, stretching his arms. "Alright, I'll take care of it."

Deidara whipped around. "No, don't you—"

The world twisted.

"—dare, un!" Deidara fell to the ground, but caught herself in time to not land in the mud, as any sufficiently trained shinobi did. "Why did you do that? I could have taken care of it, un!"

Obito turned to her, arms crossed in lieu of raising an eyebrow. "Listen, Deidara. You have, despite everything, somehow managed to become a vaguely decent aspect of my life. I, for whatever reason, don't mind having you around. I don't know why, and I don't care to try figuring it out. Moreover, I'm older than you, and your partner, and thus consider you my responsibility. Your well-being is of concern to me, so if I feel like taking care of you, you are d*** well going to let me." Obito wasn't quite sure when he'd started caring, but he definitely knew that he'd started feeling _responsible_ after Deidara had revealed that she knew his real identity, because he'd then started acting his real age, and that just made him feel so _old_ around the younger shinobi.

Deidara stared at him, inscrutable expression on her face. Then, like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, a smile grew on Deidara's face. Like a particularly excitable puppy, she leapt forward and wrapped her arms around Obito, who didn't bother turning intangible to avoid her.

"You _like_ me! You care!" She giggled, tightening her hug slightly.

Obito sighed and put one arm around her back, patting her head with the other. "Sure, whatever."

With one last squeeze, Deidara giggled and turned around, putting a hand up to shield her visible eye. "So, which way are we going, now?"

"North." Obito replied, and started heading off in that direction, hearing Deidara's footsteps as she followed behind.

Zetsu _had_ said that Type II bipolarity was the one with sudden mood swings, right?

o.o.o.o.o

Naruto looked at his teams. He'd been told to try and keep it to people he knew well, since it was the first mission that he was leading on his own. And his thought process had been as follows:

He'd known that he definitely wanted someone with good chakra-sensing on each of the teams, and decided that it would be a good idea to get Neji and Hinata. Then Sakura-chan, because it would be a good idea to have a medic with them. He also thought about bringing along Sai, but this mission had a diplomatic aspect to it, so Sai was actually a _very_ bad idea.

It would probably also have been a good idea to have an experienced Jounin with them, but Kakashi-sensei was in the hospital, and Kurenai-sensei was pregnant, so that left Gai and Asuma. But he remembered Yamato, who had Mokuton and was good at dealing with demons, and decided that bringing Yamato was probably a good idea instead. He kind of wanted to bring along Jiraiya, because of his sealing abilities, but Jiraiya was officially a last resort now due to his injuries. So Naruto needed to get the seals for the Sanbi beforehand, and make sure that they worked when needed. It was a lucky thing that the lower-numbered beasts could be sealed into inanimate objects, rather than living beings, and that Jiraiya was the best sealing master in the Elemental Nations.

So he started thinking about who else would be good on a mission like this, and decided that Ino was a good idea, because she was the one that knew a lot about psychology, and so she probably knew how they should talk with Deidara. And since Ino was coming, Naruto also considered Shikamaru and Chouji. He had five spots filled (Neji, Hinata, Sakura, Yamato, and Ino), and that left two open to him, since he filled one up too.

Though, he realized, he probably wanted someone that could _track_ chakra as well, in addition to the Hyuuga sensors, so bringing along Shino or Kiba would be a good idea too. Shino was a better idea, though, since Kiba was too brash for the situation to go well.

Let's see, that left one spot open to him. And of the people that he could trust to do this, he had Asuma, Gai, Lee, Chouji, Shikamaru, and TenTen left. Gai and Lee were out because of the same reason as Kiba, and Asuma probably wanted to stay near Kurenai, since she was closing in on the end of the second trimester, now, and the Sanbi was actually pretty far away from Konoha. That left Chouji, Shikamaru, and TenTen. Chouji was a good friend and a great fighter, but he wasn't the kind of person that was needed for a demon-sealing, really.

So that left TenTen and Shikamaru. TenTen knew things about sealing, probably more than any other person in their age group, simply due to the number of seals that she used in the creation and storage of her weapons. On the other hand, Shikamaru was considered a genius for a reason, and would probably be pretty good in the case of diplomacy.

Hm, this was a tough choice…

TenTen it was.

And so the two teams stood in front of him. Naruto himself was leading a team with Ino, Neji, and Yamato, while the other team consisted of Hinata, Sakura, Shino, and TenTen.

There were a strangely large number of girls on these teams. Ah, well. They were kunoichi. They could handle a little extra estrogen.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara stood on top of the clay bird, staring down at the seemingly normal lake. "Okay… so we're _sure_ the Sanbi's here, right?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely?"

"_Yes_."

"Okay, un…" Deidara stared down at the lake, a little disbelieving. "So… should I just toss in a C3 to wake it up?"

"Are you _insane?_ Why would you possibly need a C3 to wake it up? Just use a larger-than-normal C1 and be done with it."

Let us all take a moment to remember that this conversation was being held between Deidara and the man who was technically Tobi, actually Obito, and nominally Madara.

Give it a few seconds…

Okay, _Obito_ was the one that said the last line. Does that seem a little hypocritical to anyone else? I mean, he's _just_ as insane as she is.

And he was _still_ the one that was suggesting a more logical route.

In any case…

Deidara tilted her head to the side and pouted down at the water. She sighed and moved a hand to the clay pouches at her sides. "Fine."

Deidara's bombs were always a decent distraction, and they worked very well as far as wake up calls went. However, they were also quite loud when Deidara didn't take precautions to dampen the sound, and thus drew attention very easily.

The good news on that front was that it got the attention of the Sanbi.

The bad news was that it also got the attention of two rather special teams of Konoha shinobi.

_Oops_.

Deidara stared in a strange kind of fascinated horror at the group that landed in front of her, none of them speaking. Then she turned to Tobi. "I blame you for this, un. I don't even know what happened, and I'm still going to blame you for this."

Tobi tilted his head, and when he spoke, his voice came out as a childish whine. "But Deidara-sempai!"

The Konoha-nin tensed, but felt a foreboding, unsuitable chill go down their spines at his next words.

"_Tobi's a good boy._"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: That line is never good. Whenever you hear him say that, you have to remember that Tobi is **_**never**_ **a real good boy. He's a bad boy. He's **_**always **_**a bad boy. Even when he's a good boy.**

**I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.**

**In any case, this arc is taking more time than I expected it to. That's interesting. And not particularly good.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	30. That Turtle is Ripped

"_Yes, but it's Stalin's version of democracy."  
"Which is communism."  
"Which isn't democracy at all."  
"Stalin's version of democracy: you can vote for Stalin, or… you can vote for Stalin. Or you can get a bullet in the neck."_

_- After I asked about Poland and the Yalta conference: the usual guy, my teacher, someone else, the usual guy again._

o.o.o.o.o

The Konoha Teams:

Naruto, Ino, Neji, Yamato (diplomatic team).

Sakura, Shino, TenTen, Hinata (Sanbi team).

Yamato and Sakura were/are prepared to switch teams if so necessary.

o.o.o.o.o

"What are you doing here, un?" Deidara demanded, folding her arms under her chest. Tobi stood next to her, quiet after a hissed reprimand. Even Tobi could look suitably intimidating if he just stayed quiet and folded his arms.

"We're here to secure the Sanbi… and hopefully talk to you." Naruto's words were cautious, and the tension grew…

"Deidara-sempai, look! It's a butterfly!" Tobi shoved a mangled mess of an insect towards Deidara.

Silence reigned.

"That's… nice, un. Get it out of my face."

"But it's so pretty!"

"It's crushed and disgusting and oozing guts, un."

"B-but…!"

"You're being a bad boy, Tobi." Deidara said, as though it was the end of the discussion.

"No! Tobi can't be a bad boy! Tobi's a good boy! Tobi just—Tobi can't—aagh!" He ran off into the forest, arms flailing.

Deidara sighed and shook her head, turning her attention back to the Konoha teams. She sweatdropped when she noticed that they were all staring after Tobi.

"Uh… you may not want to take him too seriously, un." Deidara chuckled awkwardly. "He's a lot better than he pretends to be, un. I think so, at least. He's a bit strange, sometimes, un…"

She trailed off, tapping her chin and staring off into the distance with a thoughtful look on her face. The whole pose was calculated, of course. By acting the way she was, Deidara was implying a certain level of intelligence, caring, and reserve. She was being thoughtful, and she was implying fondness for Tobi, in a manner that was almost maternal, or just sisterly. Deidara _knew_ how she was supposed to act to gain someone trust or sympathy, particularly someone from a village like Konohagakure.

"Right…" The one that spoke that time was the eldest. Deidara turned her head to stare at him inquisitively. All she needed to do was keep them occupied, lull them into a false sense of security… and then snap up and remind them of just why she was considered an S-rank criminal.

"So… you know, you could, like, actually _tell_ me why you wanted to talk to me, un." Deidara folded her arms under her chest, visible eyebrow raised as she fixed a stare on the team in front of her. She didn't miss the small hand movement that the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki sent to the others, causing one of the teams to scurry off under the supposed cover of a genjutsu. Too bad, really. She was having fun with them. Deidara probably wouldn't have noticed the genjutsu, but even if she only trained one eye against genjutsu, the other had gotten fairly adept at the practice as well.

The Jinchuuriki, part of the team that was still there, stood slightly taller. "Why are you part of Akatsuki?"

Deidara blinked, and then tilted her head to the side, mulling the question over. "Well… because I feel like it? I mean, I didn't join because I wanted to, but I don't really _want_ to leave now, so…" she shrugged. "I got dragged in because I lost a bet against Itachi, and now I'm staying because I care about some of the people that are in the organization. Do you ask everyone this?"

"…You lost a bet? You joined a criminal organization because you _lost a bet?_" The girl, who looked rather similar to Deidara as far as hair and a few other things went (wait a second… this was the Yamanaka girl that she'd met a while ago! Back in chapter… 9? Wow, that was a while ago…) seemed almost outraged. Well, it wasn't _Deidara's_ fault. Hmph.

You do realize you just broke the fourth wall again, right?

Deidara ignored the author's voice.

Let me guess, don't want to look crazy in front of the enemy?

Deidara didn't answer.

Pity. Can you at least confirm that you can still hear me? Just, like, blink a few times?

Deidara fluttered her eyes as though a piece of dust had entered it somehow, and raised a hand to rub at the uncovered one to fool the Konoha nin.

Oh, okay. I was actually getting a little worried for a second.

"Are you okay?"

Deidara stared down at the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, eyes clouded with apparent confusion. "Uh… yes? Stop being so nice, un. It's creepy. I tried to kill you, and you did the same back, un, so stop being nice. It's just weird, okay, un?"

The Jinchuuriki's face turned… conflicted, maybe? There was a tiny bit of anger (but not directed at Deidara), and… was that _pity?_

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wipe that look off your face, okay, un? I don't know why you feel like you need to pity me, so stop, un. It's annoying."

The Jinchuuriki's eyes narrowed, as though in thought, and then he brought his gaze back to Deidara. "Are you sick?"

"…What?"

"You said something was wrong with your head. Are you sick? Mentally?"

"Oh…" Deidara shrugged. "Well, yeah. It's not too bad, though. I've got medication for most of it, un."

"_Most_ of it?" It was the Yamanaka girl again, and she was slowly edging closer. Well, she was probably interested in the subject if she was a Yamanaka, right? They were mind-based shinobi, the worst and best kind of infiltrators.

Deidara shrugged again, making no move to acknowledge the small niggling feeling in the back of her mind that Tobi was about to bring his fight with the Sanbi out into the open. "Meh. Pyromania's actually useful in my line of work, or at least it isn't too bad, so we don't really bother with controlling that part, un. Point is, I've got it under control. You mind your business, and I'll mind mine until we _have_ to interact because of the bad tempered fuzzball in your gut, un." Deidara pointed at Naruto's stomach as she said that, smirking as her lone eye locked with his.

He narrowed his own eyes, but there was an unsure look in them as well. Then his resolve seemed to harden, and Deidara blinked at the change.

"Come to Konoha with us."

Silence reigned for several seconds, as Deidara just stared at them, almost uncomprehending, though she understood the request all too well. Then she laughed.

"Are you insane, un? No. No, no, a thousand times no. Maybe I would have agreed a few years ago, but now, un? H*** no." She shook her head, still giggling a little. "Unless you're willing to take in all of Akatsuki, which isn't going to happen since Leader kind of hates your village, that's _totally _not happening, un."

"You said you were forced into the organization." The oldest one pointed out.

"Uh, yeah, which is why you might've succeeded a few years ago, un. Not now, though, 'cause I actually care about people in Akatsuki now, un. Too little, too late, so… too bad!" She pulled down an eyelid and stuck her tongue out at them, grinning.

"And how do you know that you weren't brainwashed into thinking that? How do you know that they aren't taking advantage of your mental instability?" The Yamanaka girl again. At least she seemed to understand part of what she was talking about, which was more than could be said for many people.

Thought the silence and unending stare coming from the Hyuuga kid were a _little_ creepy. You know, just a little.

"It could be Stockholm Syndrome, you know." The girl edged closer, eyes slightly narrowed. Oh, so she _did_ know what she was saying.

"Maybe," Deidara shrugged. "But I honestly can't bring myself to care by this point, un. Besides, the authoress is getting a little antsy. We should really move this along a little, un."

How nice of you to care.

"Besides, _hello_, un. My job is to catch bijuu, like the one in you, kid, un." Deidara stabbed a finger in Naruto's direction. "You're honestly trying to get to me like that, un? Yeah, I get what you're saying, but there is literally no chance of you managing to get me to Konoha unless you drag me, kicking and screaming all the way, un. And considering I'm an S-rank? Not happening, un."

And then she chuckled again, having a little too much fun because they didn't seem to know _what_ to say in response to her. She knew she was confusing them, and was quite happy with it. Deidara tilted her head again, smiling in a way that just _promised_ mischief as a hand discreetly dipped into her clay pouch. "But for now, I've got a different creature to take, un. Buh-bye!"

She spun around and whipped her hand out in front of her, bringing it back in towards her chest for a hand sign to make the bird grow. It was a good idea, really, to keep at least one bird primed for travel in situations like these.

Deidara jumped up onto the bird's back and flew up, whipping around sharply to face the Konoha ninja again. She shouted down at them, the same mad grin as always in place. "It's time to playa _game!_"

And then Tobi showed up, with the Sanbi hot on his heels.

"Sempai, Tobi found the ball!"

o.o.o.o.o

Hinata and Shino were "former" members of Team Eight, now Team Kurenai, which meant that they were known for being good trackers. Thankfully, this was one mission where Kiba was not a necessity (as he normally was, given that his ability to track scent was very useful in concerns to people, though not spontaneously created demons), and Hinata and Shino's ability to see and track chakra respectively were extremely useful in finding the Sanbi. Unfortunately, by the time they had tracked down the area of the extremely large lake from which the Sanbi had emerged, it had already disappeared elsewhere.

So they went further with the tracking, one way, then the other, as they followed the chakra trails (which only ever really appeared behind people and creatures with disturbingly large chakra reserves like bijuu, boss summons, and S-ranks) that the beast had left behind.

They finally caught up to it, TenTen unraveling the scroll that Jiraiya had given them, and trying not to squeal over the complexity of it as she did so, when they found out the problem.

Yes, they had found the Sanbi.

But they had also found a man who was, despite his apparent stupidity, managing to keep the Sanbi occupied without any injury to himself or the beast.

Oh, and he was wearing an Akatsuki cloak, too.

TenTen had tried to sneak up on it, to seal it into the scroll (and later the more secure pot that Jiraiya had created back in Konoha), but the man, who was named Tobi if his speech was anything to go by, had caught sight of her.

Thus had begun a slightly slapstick chase, full of many events that would not have been out of place in an old Charlie Chaplain film, which eventually lead them to the clearing that they had started out in, where conversation apparently hadn't moved much because everyone was still on guard, and wait a second, what was she shouting?

"It's time to play a _game!"_

"Sempai, Tobi found the ball!"

Oh, Kami.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara grinned down at the people below, even Tobi, as she flew around above them. This was far more fun than she had expected. Yes, getting a bijuu was difficult, but to have a decent fight with a human being, or beings, while she was at it?

She almost lazily dropped a few bombs down on the Konoha nin, grinning as they scattered. Then the old guy made a few hand signs, and slabs of wood came out of the ground and started looping around the Sanbi. Little by little, its power seemed to drain.

Deidara frowned at that; they were _stealing her kill_. And who knew how Pein would react if she failed to bring the thing in?

"Tobi, get up here, un!"

Three seconds was a little long, but Tobi got there anyway.

"Sempai?"

"Get ready to teleport back to base with the Sanbi as soon as it's under control, un. Got it?"

"Okay, sempai!" Tobi jumped off the bird, arms flailing on the way.

Deidara looked down at the milling battle on the ground, which seemed to be Konoha against… everyone else present. She sent out a few more bombs, and then noticed that part of the Sanbi seemed to be… getting sucked away?

Her eyes narrowed on the girl with the scroll, who was slowly sealing the Sanbi away with the Mokuton nin's help. Oh, no. This just wouldn't do, would it, now?

Deidara sent out several C1 in their direction, and several more to separate the others from the Sanbi. She dived down on the bird, homing in on the still-thrashing form of the giant turtle, and trusting that Tobi was ready for transport and had kept himself from being destroyed by the bombs.

He was, but there was a tearing feeling as they were transported back to base, the large teleport using up almost all of Tobi's chakra.

Deidara glanced at the Sanbi, which was no longer thrashing, but now groaning.

"Did you hypnotize it, un?"

Tobi shook his head weakly.

Deidara frowned and sensed for the Sanbi's chakra.

Her eyes widened.

S***.

They'd only gotten the Yang half.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: So both sides half-failed the mission, but accomplished part of the objectives.**

**Did anyone see that coming?**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	31. Orochimaru's Scrolls

"_Shakespeare wasn't meant to be read."_

_- Honestly, the first quote that's NOT from my History class. It's from the teacher that was directing the spring play._

"_It was meant to be performed."_

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara groaned, falling in his bed with no grace whatsoever. A fight with a bijuu, followed by a botched Tobi-driven teleport, the disappointment radiating from Pein and Konan, and a bijuu sealing had taken its toll on him.

At least Obito couldn't blame him for anything, not when he'd been there himself. Silver linings and all, right?

"Brat." Sasori's voice sliced through drowsiness, and Deidara turned his head slightly, a small whine coming out of the back of his throat to acknowledge the intrusion.

Sasori sighed, shaking his head. "Never mind. Just sleep for now, and I'll tell you in the morning."

"Mh-hmm…" Deidara didn't really hear what had been said, but agreed anyway. He could trust Danna.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara woke up that morning to find Sasori sitting next to him on a chair. There were several seconds of silence as Deidara stared at the older ninja by his bed.

"…Were you watching me sleep, un? That's kind of creepy."

"Yes. I was checking to see if there were any physical effects of your disorders in your exhausted state."

"…Slightly less creepy since you have a reason, but still pretty creepy, un." Deidara sat up, yawning and stretching as he did so. "So… what happened?"

"Orochimaru is dead."

Deidara froze, mulling it over in his head. "Who killed him, un?"

"Apparently, Uchiha Saskue."

Deidara blinked at that, and then frowned, trying to remember. "Itachi's little brother?"

"Yes." Sasori stood up and walked over to the door, pulling Deidara's cloak off the hook and throwing it at the younger nukenin.

Deidara caught the cloud-patterned cloak easily, despite the sleep that was still fogging his eyes. "When did this all happen, un?"

"While you were out capturing the Sanbi." Sasori walked over to Hiruko and unlatched the top. He continued speaking as he climbed in and began to do a few preliminary checks. "Pein wants me to go see if there's anything salvageable from the bases that I know of through my spies, but doesn't want me going alone since, I still haven't built up my collection to the level that it was before."

"So I'm coming along, un? Wasn't that a bit of a given anyway?" Deidara got up off of his bed, pulling on the cloak and walking over to his closet to rummage around a little to find some clay packs. He didn't question the fact that he'd only just returned from a mission, only just woken up, not even had breakfast yet… he was in Akatsuki. If something needed to be done, it would be.

"You and… Tobi." Sasori grimaced a little, now almost done as he slid scrolls into slots on Hiruko's insides. Several of the scrolls were empty storage scrolls, ready to hold whatever he found in the abandoned bases. "None of us are really at full strength, given that you two only just returned and the state of my own puppet collection since the fight with Konoha after the sealing of the Ichibi, but there's three of us, and there weren't any S-ranks in the Oto bases other than Orochimaru anyway, other than Yakushi Kabuto and possibly Uchiha Sasuke, both of whom have, by all accounts, either left independently or sequestered themselves in personal laboratories anyway. Pein doesn't want any of us straining ourselves, so we'll be travelling there slowly, but it shouldn't go too badly if you control yourself."

"Walking or flying, un?" Deidara asked as he pulled on his shoes. A glance in the mirror told him that his hair was in need of redoing, so he moved over to the entrance of the bathroom, still close enough to hear Sasori.

"Walking. I doubt you can carry three without straining yourself at the moment, especially Hiruko, and I need to start getting used to Hiruko's recent adjustments in an ecologically valid environment." Sasori slowly allowed Hiruko's shell to close down on him, and then the eyes flickered open, flickered on, almost glowing as Sasori's chakra flowed down the paths to the spherical constructions to stare out at the world.

"Right." Deidara attached a few more scrolls to his belt and turned back to Sasori, zipping up his cloak. "I'm ready to go, un."

"Good." Hiruko scuttled out of the room slowly, almost elegant despite 'her' shape, and Deidara followed behind.

Of course, Deidara did have one last thing to ask…

"So, can I go eat first, un? I'm kind of hungry and haven't had anything to eat for a while, and I kind of want to have breakfast before going on a mission, un."

Sasori sighed.

o.o.o.o.o

"They'll be fine, Konan. There are three of them, and they have a contingency plan to get back quickly if necessary." Nagato laid a hand on Konan's forearm, squeezing slightly in an attempt to comfort her. His fingers were still thin and bony, but they were better than they had been, and didn't _quite_ send a shiver of disgust down his spine whenever he saw them.

Konan sighed and nodded, and Nagato thought he could see the piercing in her lip turn slightly, as though she was nervously twisting it with her teeth in an attempt to stave off the anxiety.

"Why are you so worried about Deidara? He can take care of himself." Nagato moved his hand further down Konan's arm, entwining his fingers with hers. His elbow was still bony enough that the armrest (and the rest of the seat as well) needed padding, but he was getting closer to a healthy weight. Of course, Sasori was playing the role of doctor and still wasn't pleased with Nagato's progress, but as impatient as Sasori was, it could simply be that he didn't like the length of time that it was taking for Nagato to heal.

"He's young and reckless, and he only just got back from a major assignment… and I care about Deidara. He, or she, is like… a much younger sibling, prone to silly and dangerous antics simply to look cool for the older kids." Konan fiddled around with Nagato's hand, staring down at it, as opposed to Nagato's still thin face (looking at him like that almost made her want to cry, though it hardly showed through her normal emotionless façade when she wanted to hide it), or the room itself (in which all six Inner Paths were currently resting, like corpses in half-glass coffins).

"Like Yahiko." Nagato summarized, a wry look in his eyes. "Deidara doesn't have the same ideals, though."

"No," Konan shook her head. "Deidara isn't really much like Yahiko, not when it comes to their base mentality, to what drives them and keeps them grounded. Deidara is far more wild and free and… well, explosive."

Nagato smiled softly and leaned over to press a kiss to Konan's head, his lips pressing against the blue hair that made Konan so much more exotic than almost any other woman he'd ever met. "They'll be fine."

o.o.o.o.o

Sharing a hotel room was banned after the first night. While Deidara got along well enough with both Tobi-the-good-boy and with Sasori, the two did _not_ get along well with each other. At all.

That's… really all you need to know. There's not much of a story behind it. Tobi was just annoying, and Sasori was annoyed, so… just no sharing. Kakuzu could deal with it. They'd catch a small bounty or two on their way back to cover the cost. Deidara could just switch off between one room and the other so that they only bought two rooms instead of three.

At least Deidara got a laugh out of it…

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was a girl by the time they got to the third base, and spending far more time in a cheerful mood than as a boy (a strangely natural-seeming phenomenon that Zetsu still could find neither head nor tail of). She was spending more time running around with Tobi and telling humorous stories to Sasori while sitting on top of Hiruko (a habit that Sasori tolerated with gritted teeth).

The base was only guarded by a few dozen of those curse-sealed shinobi that hadn't bothered to leave since they had nowhere else to go, and they were quickly disposed of (two of which happened to have a bounty and whose heads were kept in a scroll with all the rest). Then came the 'fun' part.

Rummaging around through the rooms.

Now, getting in wasn't very hard. Sasori could disable the seals, though some took longer than others. Tobi could slip through the walls and open rooms from the inside without triggering anything, and check for traps along the way. Deidara could blast her way through almost any barrier that required force, and do so remotely enough that the traps weren't always triggered. And of course, all of them were S-ranked shinobi with enough paranoia (and a surplus on Sasori's part) to see anything designed to kill them from… well, not a mile away (the base was only a few miles across, and mostly medical buildings), but maybe from a minute away.

Don't judge, now.

In any case, the base seemed to be made mainly as a medical center and experimental focus. The rooms were generally painted white or a similarly bland color, and stainless steel and glass were everywhere. The only places that seemed at all… _rustic…_ were the scroll rooms.

Deidara was told, by Sasori of course, to check through the scrolls and see if there was anything in them that he might be interested in. The work was slightly tedious, but there were plenty of strange and often disgusting operations that Orochimaru had developed, like this one, where the snake man or Kabuto had inserted chakra-controlled Fuuton-based tubes into a person's arms.

Deidara put down the scroll in the "Give to Sasori" pile, which was a fair bit larger than the "Leave Behind" pile on her other side. She pulled the next scroll over to her and slid it open, eyes scanning the words dispassionately.

Then she paused, went back to the beginning, and read through it again, more carefully this time. A wide grin slowly curled across her face, and she stifled a few excited giggles as she read further.

This was _perfect!_

Deidara rolled the scroll up and leapt to her feet, only standing still for a few seconds with her eyes closed as she tried to sense the chakra that would tell her where Sasori was.

The blonde girl sprinted down the halls, and slammed open the door to the room where Sasori was.

Then she dodged a few senbon that Sasori sent her way due to assuming that she was an enemy, but that's beside the point.

She wasn't breathing too hard, but Sasori still seemed a little concerned. "What's wrong? Is there something here that's going to kill us if we don't leave soon? Poison gas for you or something?"

Deidara shook her head and took a step forward, holding out the scroll. "Read it and tell me if you can do it, un."

Sasori raised an eyebrow, but took it anyway and unfurled it. Several minutes later, he set it down and turned back to his partner. "Why do you want to know? It's completely unnecessary for you, particularly considering that you aren't planning for anything like this."

"It's not for me."

Well, that clarified it. At least, it did in Sasori's mind, because there was really only one person that Deidara could possibly be thinking of with this.

"I will have to do a few trial runs first, perhaps on some rabbits, but the theory is sound enough that the procedure will likely work." Sasori sighed and rolled the scroll back up, then used it to point out the door. "Now go back and finish up, we need to work fast."

"Okay, Danna. Thank you, un!" Deidara left the room at a pace that was slower than her way in, but still faster than what was probably reasonable.

Sasori sighed and glanced down at the scroll in his hand again. Of all the things to find here, this was the most unexpected. That wasn't to say it didn't make sense (because it did, given Orochimaru's interest in genetics), but it was still somewhat surprising.

And so _simple_ in theory, too.

Now, to see if it worked as well in practice.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara was a girl again when they reached the Akatsuki base again, and immediately ran to Konan.

"Konan-nee!" She hugged the older woman, who rolled her eyes at the action but still hugged the girl back, and with a relieved smile on her face at that.

"Hello, Dei-chan. I'm glad you had a good trip."

"I found something for you~, un!" Deidara's voice was sing-song as she pulled something out from the side pocket of her cloak, a scroll that was probably from Orochimaru's hideout.

Konan raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yep! And don't worry, Sasori no Danna already tested it out on some rabbits and stuff, so we know it works, un. And then he did it for a woman in some village we passed through, pretending he was a travelling shaman or something. I wasn't really paying attention at the time, un." Deidara giggled and patted Konan on the shoulder, handing over the scroll with her other hand. "Go on, look, look!"

Konan laughed softly, amused by the infectious happiness that Deidara was carrying. She took the scroll and unrolled it. Her smile slowly changed from amusement to shock.

She looked up at Deidara sharply. "You're sure this would work?"

Deidara smiled, though in a way that was sympathetic, not amused. "Yeah. I told you, un, Danna tested it already."

Konan smiled, almost crying, and hugged Deidara tightly. She whispered, "Thank you…"

Then she turned and left, going to find Nagato and talk to him about this new development.

Hidan approached Deidara from behind and put a chin on her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist. "Deidara? What was all that about?"

"We found a scroll in one of Orochimaru's bases, and it's making Konan really happy." Deidara snuggled in closer to Hidan's embrace, eyes closing so that she could focus on the feeling and smell.

"Really? What was it on?"

"Something called… artificial insemination."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I've had that solution planned since I started the "Konan wants a baby" subplot. No complaints about it, please.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	32. Dead as a Zombie

"_Was there some sort of formal invitation to the USSR?"  
"Did he just say: Hey, you wanna join the Soviet Union? Here's a hint, you do."_

_- The usual guy. My history teacher said something in between the two, but that is relatively unimportant._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: It doesn't show up here, but there **_**will**_** be several plot points from earlier showing back up in the next five or ten chapters (I'm not sure how I'm splitting things up, since I usually go by word count and what feels like a good place to stop, instead of planning out what goes into which chapter). So I'd suggest going back to reread chapters nine through twelve again at some point in the near future. I think one of the Chekhov's Guns is showing up in the chapter after this one, if I'm right, so make sure you're ready to recognize how far in advance I've planned (especially since **_**that**_** one's been in the planning stages since about… chapter five).**

**Also, for everyone wondering about the attack on Konoha, here's a few things to mull over:**

**Jiraiya can't infiltrate Ame now due to his arm.**

**Konan is no longer available to provide support.**

**Nagato's a **_**little**_ **distracted at the moment. By multiple things. Especially his unborn child. And the fact that Konan's distressed due to Deidara's current depression. And Sasori's angry doctor rants.**

**When you get to the shift toward the end of the chapter (there is a scene that starts with a single-word sentence), start playing "Wish You Were Here" by Avril Lavigne. I know, I know, it's not normally a good idea to do this, but I found this song the day after I wrote that scene and just… well.**

o.o.o.o.o

It took three weeks to implement the technique and confirm the results, but those three weeks ended in the overjoyed state of Akatsuki's lone _constant_ kunoichi (Deidara didn't count. S/he wasn't constant, at all). Of course, Kakuzu then decided that he wanted to go get a bounty he'd been looking to get for a while, a priest from a Fire Temple, who just so happened to be a former member of the Fire Daimyo's elite guard. Of course, Pein demanded that they go get the Nibi first (a fact that caused Kakuzu to grumble as Kumo was in the opposite direction of his future money), but when it was all said and done, there really wasn't much of a conflict.

The night before Hidan was due to leave, he and Deidara lay alone in Deidara's bed. They hadn't engaged in the normal 'activities,' but were simply lying there to be close before Hidan had to leave in the morning. Yes, they were spooning, and yes, Deidara was the on the 'inside,' being the smaller of the two. Their conversation ran long into the night, despite the fact that an early morning would be necessary for Hidan.

"So, why _was_ Kakuzu so angry at you a couple days ago, un?" Deidara asked, head lying on a pillow that was squashed down between her head and arm. "I kind of forgot to ask."

Hidan traced a line up Deidara's arm with a single finger, playing with her hair as it tangled everywhere, and Deidara felt a movement behind her, presumably Hidan shrugging. "It was nothing. I just had to borrow a lot of ryo to buy something, and he got angry at me for it. He calmed down a little after he found out the reason, but he still doesn't like wasting money like that."

"What was it for?"

Hidan shrugged again. "Nothing big. I just saw some things I wanted while I was in a town in Kusa no Kuni. I'll show you when I get back."

Deidara laughed a little. "Okay, I guess. Still, was it really a good idea for him to cut off your head so soon before a mission?"

"No, but it doesn't really matter." Hidan buried his head into the crook of Deidara's neck and rubbed the tip of his nose into a spot that he _knew_ made Deidara giggle, ticklish as she was.

"Hidan, stop!" She continued to giggle even after he moved away from her and just hugged her instead.

"…Hey, Dei?"

"Mm-hm?" Deidara was fiddling around with the blankets, trying to line them up correctly or something along those lines.

"Can you do the…" Hidan trailed off, but his hand reached up to rest on the top of Deidara's head.

She rolled her eyes, but nodded despite that. "It's your last night here for a while, so… alright."

A few hand-signs later, slow due to being impeded by the blankets and a desire to stay comfortable, Deidara sprouted a tail, and her ears, moving up to the top of her head, changed shape to become those of a cat.

She started purring almost immediately as Hidan scratched behind the changed features, in a spot that had almost all cats, and apparently cat-influenced humans, in near-ecstasy.

Well, it's not like changing to this was _too_ much of a hassle.

o.o.o.o.o

Two weeks later, Deidara was kept awake by a foreboding feeling prickling at the back of his neck. As an experienced shinobi, he'd learned to listen to such feelings, and as a close friend of Sasori, to be extremely paranoid concerning everything as well.

And so he stood up in the middle of the night, and began to pace.

"Brat, what are you doing?"

"I just… I get the feeling that something's going to go wrong soon, un." He kept pacing, biting his lip (his hands stayed tightly closed, lips pursed and teeth gnashing).

"If it has something to do with Hidan, you were there during the meeting, same as I was." Sasori turned back to his worktable, which was where he usually spent his nights.

"I know, and the fact that they got that Sarutobi guy is great for our finances and all, un, but I just…" Deidara dithered. "She's writing this, you know, un. She'd only write it if it was either to mess with us or because it's actually important, un, and I have a feeling that it's the latter."

Sasori frowned at that. As unfortunate as it was, Deidara's words were completely true. The authoress, annoying as she sometimes was—

I resent that. Except, I'm the one who wrote it. So, what did I just…?

Let's get back to it. Sasori can't hear me right now anyway.

—had a habit of popping up in ways that were actually more helpful than not on occasion. She knew when to contact them directly, at least. And if Deidara was hearing her write this scene, hazy as the medication made her voice…

"Do you know what might be wrong?"

Deidara shook his head. "No, but I think it might have something to do with Hidan, un. He just… I don't know. I'm trying to figure it out, un."

"Well, he'll be back in about two weeks. You can see him then."

o.o.o.o.o

One week later, Deidara was in the middle of making herself lunch when she was hit by a searing headache.

She hissed, pressing the palm of one hand to her head. "Ow… what are you _doing_?"

She glared up at the ceiling at… ah. Me.

Well, I needed to trigger your attention somehow, right?

"Is it necessary?"

Of course not. In fact, I'm sure Pein's going to call you all in to talk soon, because he got contacted through the rings.

Deidara's heart dropped, headache already gone and forgotten.

"What happened?"

…You should probably go see it yourself.

"What happened?!" Deidara slammed a hand down on the counter, glaring at the ceiling again, and waiting for an answer.

I figured you wouldn't take the information as badly if I warned you first.

"You—!"

Go.

Deidara glared at the ceiling, and then turned, scoffed, and left.

o.o.o.o.o

Dead.

Deidara shook her head. Alright, not _quite_ dead, but in pieces at the bottom of a hole was close enough.

Kakuzu was is in the infirmary at the moment, down to one heart, which was now faltering and had Sasori working overtime in an attempt to keep Akatsuki's oldest member from finally succumbing to his age. Kakuzu was better than anyone else in Akatsuki at gathering money, and he had people everywhere, knowledge on almost everything. He was useful to the extreme.

Tobi had gotten him back. Nagato had gotten what amounted to a distress call on the rings partway through Kakuzu's fight, and then sent Tobi to go get him. Unfortunately, Kakuzu and Hidan had been split, and Hidan's destroyed body was under guard now, though no one in Akatsuki was quite sure by what.

And Deidara couldn't go get him, not without disobeying Pein.

"We can't send anyone. Itachi's too sick, and Kakuzu is half-dead. Sasori is too busy taking care of them, and he's constantly got Zetsu going out to get medicinal herbs for him. I'm not letting Konan out of my sight now, and Kisame would draw too much attention, given how many times he's already been seen by Konoha's forces and how odd he looks anyway."

"What about me and Tobi, un?" Deidara had been almost desperate with that.

"Konoha will try to get you over to their side again, and I can't trust you to not start a war with Konoha. Can you promise me that you'd be able to stay discrete and not draw Konoha's eye to starting a war with either Amegakure or Akatsuki?"

Deidara's voice had caught in her throat, knowing that she honestly _couldn't_ promise that. She was too reckless, and she wouldn't be able to help it if someone approached her again. She wouldn't just mock someone if they tried to convert her to Konoha again. She would kill them, leave maybe one person half-alive, and tell them just why she'd done it and to pass the message along.

No, she couldn't promise that.

"And Tobi?"

Pein's stare back had been enough on that suggestion.

So now she sat in her room, head in her hands, trying not to cry. Her scope sat next to her, clearly displaying a little Jashinist symbol that Hidan half-painted, half-carved on. A knock sounded on her door, and she lifted her head to look with red eyes.

"Come in." She croaked, and the door creaked open, showing Tobi. No… there was the glint of a Sharingan behind the mask. Obito was there.

"We've been given a mission." He came closer, and hesitantly put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you… are you alright?"

Deidara shook her head, a hiccupping laugh making its way out as she tried not to cry. "Of course I'm not. Why didn't you get Hidan too?"

"There wasn't enough time. He was already buried by the time I came back for him." He sighed and sat down on the bed next to her. "Digging up all the pieces would have taken too long, since there were so many people there, and coming back later… someone would have been alerted in time to chase me off."

Deidara buried her head back down into her hands and shook as she suppressed some sobs.

Obito knew what to do, but he was still awkward after his sequestering from normal society all those years ago. Despite that, he still put one arm around Deidara's shoulders and pulled her close, his other hand coming up to smooth her hair down in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

"He'll be fine. Maybe a little hungry and angry, but we'll dig him up eventually, especially since you're so set on getting him back." Obito squeezed her shoulders in a slight hug. "C'mon. Let's go on that mission, okay?"

Deidara nodded and stood, taking a deep breath to steady herself. She was ready.

For the next week, Obito could only watch in slightly disturbing worry (disturbing because he _shouldn't_ have been feeling it) as Deidara's mood only grew worse and worse. He was depressed in either gender, and spent a lot of time fingering his clay as though he was once again contemplating the idea of using the kinjutsu that his chest-mouth was for. The depression was eerily similar to what had happened after the incident with Mamoru, but more extreme. Obito was sure that Deidara would try to use his C0 if things kept on as they were.

At the end of that week, Deidara ran into Uchiha Sasuke. Through some terrifyingly odd series of events, much conversation involving Itachi and the differing viewpoints that the two had on him, several moments of Tobi attempting to distract them and then annoying the team that had come along with the youngest Uchiha… Deidara and Sasuke began to fight.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: If you're curious… yes, there's a reason why Sasuke has **_**never**_ **shown up before this. It'll show up in the next chapter. Yes, the Great Snake Escape will happen… with a twist. I've been planning this twist for almost thirty chapters. It's the whole reason I started doing weekly updates to catch up to the same information in AK:PCO. It is also going to be the last moment of anything resembling canon. I mean, I've been twisting it up until now, but this is the point at which we break away completely. Deidara will, of course, survive, but **_**how…**_** Well, you know my style. This is going to be **_**fun**_**.**

**By the way, it's been a while since I last asked, so I figured the time was ripe to do so again: mind giving me a TvTropes rec on one of the Naruto FanFic Rec Pages?**

**And I'm glad to see review numbers climbing back up. They make me happy.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	33. I'm Not Dead Yet!

"_Can we _say_ Hitler was a racist? Well… _yeah_."_

_- My history teacher._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Don't you just love it when an author manages to plug up a plot hole, and turn it into an actual part of the plot? I know I do. That's why I came up with this all those months ago, after all.**

o.o.o.o.o

The fight wasn't in either side's favor, really. Deidara was more experienced and powerful, had fought on this level so many times that it was ridiculous. Sasuke had the curse seal and more control, and was more subtle in his actions. Deidara _should_ have won, though. There were things happening, things that he couldn't explain.

The Sharingan was good, but no matter the detail and chakra sight, microscopic objects were _too_ small to see. Deidara knew this, he'd talked to Itachi. The tiny bombs that made up C4 were too small to be seen by _any_ eye, unless aided by a microscope. What Sasuke was claiming to do was, quite frankly, impossible.

Then there was the fact that he had seen the bombs underground. The Sharingan was not a Byakugan without 360 degree vision; it wasn't supposed to be able to see through things.

Raiton shouldn't have been able to stop the bombs. Maybe kill off a few duds, but Deidara's clay was part chakra, part science. It was already good to explode, the chakra just made is stronger.

And he seemed to think that it was. That was part of what confused Deidara the most. No matter what happened, Sasuke took it in stride as though it was not only possible, but as though it was part of his plan. He also said things that didn't make sense, illogical conclusions that Deidara couldn't make sense of.

Deidara blinked uneasily halfway through the fight as Sasuke seemed to suddenly have a surge of chakra, one unconnected to the curse seal.

Unexpected bursts of chakra as well? That was so…

Deidara flinched suddenly, a thought coming to him unbidden. There was one thing he could think of that could be causing this, but he didn't want to think that it was the way things were. If it was, his opponent would be nearly impossible to kill. Not due to skill, no, but due to the universe itself protecting him.

The symbol of Jashin carved into Deidara's scope had one use other than just aesthetics; it could mimic a priest's vision. Hidan could see it naturally, but Deidara needed help. It wasn't anything particularly useful most of the time, not like the various doujutsu that populated the world, but something more… subtle.

A Jashinist priest could see the stress on the universe.

It wasn't useful in battle. It wasn't even particularly applicable in most things, but it existed despite that due to the trouble that the world was in.

Imagine a piece of plastic, the kind that, when you flex it, has just the slightest change in color that disappears after you loosen your grip and allow it to return to normal. If you put pressure, or stress on it, the flexing will be visible, even if only a little. This is due to the density inside changing, as well as the angles within the plastic, which causes the light to bend more often than it normally would. But that's irrelevant (even if it is interesting).

The point is this: the dimension was the same. If there was pressure put on it in one place, it would become visible. Not to the naked eye, of course, but if one were a Jashinist priest, or in Deidara's case, had the aid of one…

Deidara brought a hand up to his face, sweeping his hair out of the way and resting his fingers against the side of the scope, right where the symbol was carved. A small surge of chakra left his nails and hit the side of the device.

The symbol glowed, and Deidara glanced around to see if anything had changed. For the most part, the world was still the same, but only for the most part.

Right over Sasuke, there was a miasma, something that looked like a gaseous oil slick, a dark rainbow swirling through the sky around him. It pulsed and, occasionally, there were bright white lines snapping through it like lightning… or cracks.

The miasma was thickest on his head, pressing down as though it wanted to focus on him and nothing else, to crush him to pieces right where he flew.

"Oh _h***_ no…"

Deidara sent several more bombs Sasuke's way, watching carefully. One of the bombs came close, very close. It was so close that Sasuke should have been dead with its detonation, but he was suddenly moving faster than he had been, as though gravity was more than it was. He didn't seem to notice, even after the acceleration suddenly stopped, but Deidara did.

He also noticed that the miasma, the pressure, had swirled faster and _moved_ at that moment.

There was little doubt to it, but Deidara knew one last way to check for sure, now that he thought he knew what was going on.

"Tobi!" He shouted, and waited for a reply. There was none, and Deidara realized that the man must be farther away than anticipated. Deidara didn't have a way to throw his voice, but there was one idea.

His eyes slid over to the haze around Sasuke and narrowed. Deidara didn't quite know if he _could_ do this, but it was always worth a try, especially if he wanted his plan to work.

He focused on the taint, watching where it came close to him. No matter the concentration on Sasuke, there was still a spread of it further out. Not quite escaping tendrils, but more like a gravitational pull, or a magnet. The closer you got, the stronger the effect was, and Sasuke just so happened to be that magnet.

Deidara focused on the haze, the slightly thicker pocket he'd found, _willing_ it to affect him. Force of will, and maybe a little chakra, was what could make this work.

The miasma clung to him, though it was slippery as soap and threatened to break away at any moment. Deidara felt his reasoning slip away, but he was only planning on doing this for a short while, so…

"TOBI!" He shouted again, and though his voice didn't sound much louder nearby, he could hear it grow and then diminish again as it got further away.

It had worked.

Deidara flew away from the pocket of haze as quickly as he could, feeling his mind clear, ease, as he did.

This, however, seemed to get Sasuke's attention, the first instance where he frowned, just trying to figure out why something didn't seem _right._ He was probably going to attribute it to a jutsu, but that wouldn't matter soon.

Deidara dipped sharply as a new weight appeared on it.

"Ah, sempai! What did sempai do? Tobi heard sempai's voice all the way from—!"

"Not now, un!" Deidara grunted as he dodged a large Raiton spear that was headed his way, even as he thought that Sasuke should be out of chakra already. But no, at every moment where Sasuke was about to die, _something_ bolstered him, and Deidara was pretty sure that it wasn't hatred.

"Go back to the base, and tell Danna to find my notes on Jashinism, un." He swore as he dodged another attack, not flying as well as normally due to the extra passenger on board. He then continued to give instructions and information, continuing to dodge attacks and return in kind. There was a short silence from Tobi's end after he finished.

"Deidara, you can't just—"

"He'll know what I'm talking about, un! Just go!" Deidara moved to shove him, as though to get him off of the bird, but found that the man in the mask had already turned himself intangible.

"…I'll trust you on this. Be careful, Deidara." Obito swirled around his own eye and disappeared.

Deidara turned back to Sasuke and let a grin creep onto his face. He had a plan, and if it didn't work? Well, he'd be going out with a _very_ big bang.

Deidara's first course of action was to divest himself of his shirt.

…Don't cry yet. Seriously, this isn't a part to cry yet. Please?

"Oi, Uchiha!" Deidara shouted, ripping the stitches out of his chest mouth and ignoring the slight pain that came along with it.

He took what was left of the clay in his pouch and held it up to the large mouth, feeding it in. "Let me show you something special!"

Sasuke watched warily, and Deidara could see (with a scope that was, through no small miracle, still intact) that the pressure was fluctuating, almost as if the universe itself was panicked over the destruction about to take place in the area.

"Let me tell you something, Uchiha!" Deidara yelled, feeling his body begin to interact with the clay, turning into pure, explosive energy. "Real art—!"

He felt himself being ripped apart.

"—Is a bang!"

And thus ended the life of Deidara.

…

…

…

…

…You didn't think I was _serious_, did you?

If you did, then think again.

The miasma pulled in around Sasuke as if shielding him, and a huge storm of chakra flooded the boy's body. Deidara could tell, and focused on one thought and one thought only, even as he was dying:

_Latch onto the irrationality._

o.o.o.o.o

Sasuke emerged from Manda's mouth, beaten and slimy, but alive. He spared the dying serpent one last glance and turned to his team. He opened his mouth to prevent any comments on the fight or his current situation before they were even started, but then realized that they weren't saying anything. Rather, they were all staring at a spot behind him in slight consternation and even a little horror. It couldn't be Manda; the snake was beside him, not behind.

Sasuke turned around, and then almost stumbled back in disgust. There were… organs behind him. Floating, disfigured, presumably human organs. Even as he watched, more seemed to grow in, with bone and flesh slowly being added. He took several steps back, hand on his sword, as a familiar, should-be-dead figure took shape.

"You just died. You blew yourself up." Sasuke's eyes were narrowed, hand clenched around the chokuto's handle.

"I should have, un." Deidara panted as though he'd just run a mile and pointed behind the group. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I did, un."

They turned and caught the awe-inspiring sight of what _should_ have been Deidara's final explosion.

"Beautiful, isn't it, un?" The comment brought all their attention back around, all of them pointedly looking away from the shirtless man (even his clothes were there… how come?).

"What the h*** do you think you're playing at?" Suigetsu demanded. His hand was on his own sword, ready to pull it out at a moment's notice.

Deidara grinned and pointed at Sasuke. "There are only two ways a person can see the DP, the dimensional pressure. One way is to be a Jashinist priest, of which there is only one left in the world. The other is to have the help of one, doing something like, say, putting a seal and a blessing on something used to see?" He pulled off the scope and twirled it around in one hand. With a snap of his wrist, it flew forward towards the group, and was caught by Juugo. In a manner that was not quite surprising, he didn't crush it. With Deidara's urging and Sasuke's silent approval, he brought it up to his eye.

"I don't—"

"Look at the Uchiha." Deidara said, crossing his arms.

"…What is that?"

"Like I said, dimensional pressure." Deidara grinned, but there was something calculating about it. "You want to know why I survived? It's because of your friend here."

Deidara stalked forward and, still grinning (it felt so strained, after weeks without it), poked a finger at Sasuke's chest. "Face it, kid, you're the Irrationality Locus."

o.o.o.o.o

Sasori held a page in his hand, scanning it over again and again. He could almost recite the words by now, but he didn't want to believe them.

"Sasori," Pein's voice jerked him out of his thoughts, and he looked up sharply. "If we could leave before midnight?"

Sasori scowled him, but understood that he was making people wait with his current actions. He put the papers down on the desk and leaned forward, resting his chin on his laced hands.

"Deidara's notes are detailed, but they are difficult to believe." No one tried to contest this, knowing already what the notes were on. "However, given the information Tobi brought back, I am forced to conclude that there is at least _some_ element of truth to them.

"For reasons that I will explain later if it is still necessary, Hidan's sacrifices are supposedly essential to maintaining a balance between the three realms that make up our dimension, according to Jashinist teachings. As there are no more Jashinist temples, and as Hidan has been indisposed recently," Sasori skillfully ignored the twitch that circled the room, particularly the one from Kakuzu, who was sitting next to him, "That means that the balance has started to unravel.

"At the point where souls cease to travel the path to Jashin's realm," Sasori placed a finger on one of the papers, sliding it out a little from the others. "The dimension begins to feel pressure. In an attempt to relieve itself of this pressure, it attempts to focus it all onto one living, sentient being. It's the difference between putting a hand against a paper, and a senbon against it. Increase the pressure enough, and while both will break through, the senbon will cause less damage.

"The effects on the being are double-sided. The pressure is almost sentient, and will do whatever it can to keep it's focal point from dying, because if the focal point dies, then the pressure spreads out again, so quickly that it causes still more damage, as though the senbon had exploded, or had a larger eye like a needle at the end, rather than just being pulled out and leaving a small hole. As a result, the being in question is near impossible to kill.

"On the other hand, events surrounding the person, as it is most often a human being, will grow increasingly difficult to predict as logic slowly grows to have less of a hold over them. Impossible events begin to occur to and around them, often in conjunction to the attempts to keep the focal point alive. Moreover, the pressure is somewhat corrosive, and often causes increasing mental instability in the locus. Due to the lack of mental stability and irrational events surrounding them, this focal point is known as the Irrationality Locus." Sasori ended the notes, and leaned his head down to shuffle them back together, arranging them neatly.

He lifted his head back up to stare directly at Itachi, who had already guessed the result.

"Itachi, all evidence seems to point to the person in question being your brother."

"Uchiha Sasuke is the Irrationality Locus."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Do you love me or hate me now? If you're wondering why Deidara could speak so calmly about Hidan, you'll find out in the next chapter. He's got a plan, now.**

**Did my explanation make sense? Does it cover all the bases? I've tried to make it work, but I'm not sure if I missed something by accident, or planned it but forgot to write it in.**

**Also, I'm holding a contest on DeviantArt. The rules will be posted there, but it basically boils down to this: draw some fanart for one of my stories. The best one will receive a 5k long oneshot with the prompt of their choice. The second best will receive a 2k long oneshot with the prompt of their choice. The third best will receive a 500 word drabble with the prompt of their choice. Go see my DA page for further information.**

**Ja ne, Phoenix**


	34. Travel Time

**A/N: I love making Kishi's Deus Ex Machina plots make **_**sense**_**. It's so much fun to turn something so stupid into something that **_**works**_**.**

o.o.o.o.o

"_Remember: the only good commie is a dead commie."_

_- My history teacher's reminders on what the general social ideas of the time were._

o.o.o.o.o

"You want me to _what?_" Sasuke's voice was disbelieving and dry.

Deidara rolled his eyes. "Come with me, un."

"And just why should I do that?"

"Did you or did you not hear me say that I could help you _not_ go insane, un?" Deidara shot back. "Face it, you're slowly losing your mind, whether you realize it or not, and the only way to stay sane is if you help me out, un."

"Give me one other reason. One _good_ reason." Sasuke's eyes narrowed on Deidara, daring him to offer up a less-than-reasonable offer.

"I know where your brother is, un." Deidara folded his arms across his (still bare) chest, not showing how he felt about the trump card. On the one hand, he didn't actually want Itachi dead. On the other, this might have been the only way to get the littlest Uchiha to agree to come.

"…You can show me where he is?" Sasuke stepped forward, crossing his arms across his own (semi-bare) chest. "Can you tell me his current skill set?"

"I'm not just giving you everything at once, you know, un." Deidara stared at Sasuke, unimpressed. "Give a little, get a little, yeah?"

"So you're saying…" Sasuke's eyes stayed narrowed, and Deidara absentmindedly wondered if he'd get wrinkles anytime soon. "What exactly _are _you saying? You still haven't told us what it is that you want."

"Help me dig up Hidan, the last Jashinist priest, un." Deidara's voice didn't betray the emotion behind that one sentence. "I know the name of the area, but I can't find him on my own, un. It's near Konoha, though, so you can show me."

"That's all?"

"I'll need a little help pinpointing the location, un, which is where firecracker over there can help. I heard she was a sensor." Deidara nodded over at Karin, who looked torn between fuming at the moniker and looking pleased at the praise of her skills.

"And then?"

"I'm guessing the big guy can help dig. Water boy looks like he's worth a good laugh or three, so he can be the entertainment, if nothing else." Deidara shrugged, and then caught the relieved look on Juugo's face. "What?"

"You're offering me a way to be useful that doesn't involve killing someone. If Sasuke-sama agrees, I'll come along happily." Juugo shrugged, the reasoning perfectly sound to him.

Deidara blinked, and then turned to Suigetsu. "What about you, un?"

Suigetsu made a noncommittal noise. "Do I get a chance to get my hands on any cool swords?"

Deidara tilted his head. "Well, Kisame will probably be back at the base, and Hidan's scythe is _kind of_ like a really weird sword, though I don't know if he'd be happy with me if I let you have it."

"Kisame-sempai is involved, which means Samehada is too. I'm in." Suigetsu slurped a little on his drink, and then turned to Sasuke. "What about you, oh almighty leader?"

Sasuke blinked at him blandly, and then turned back to Deidara. "How do we know you won't turn on us?"

"I need you more than you need me, un." Deidara admitted unabashedly. "And I have a personal interest in seeing you reunited with Itachi, un, seeing as he's the one that forced me to join Akatsuki against my will, way back when." So he twisted the truth a little. It wasn't like he'd _lied_ at any point.

"And how do you know that we won't turn on you?" Sasuke posed the question, one that he really should have avoided.

Deidara tilted his head a little. "Oi, big guy, girly, get over here." He motioned at them.

"These two," he clapped a hand on their shoulders, turning them to face Sasuke, "You need them, right?"

"They're useful." It wasn't a yes or a no, but it was good enough. Deidara had his answer.

"Explosive collars."

"_WHAT?_" Karin shrieked, spinning around to look at Deidara. "_You want to put WHAT ON US?_"

"Explosive collars. Don't worry; they're pretty comfortable. I can even do some special stuff so that they don't chafe."

"That's not the point!" Karin ground her teeth and then spun around to look pleading at her current leader. "Sasuke-kun!"

Sasuke was staring at the ground, and then he looked up at Deidara again. "You would only detonate them in the case of our betrayal?"

Deidara nodded. "I'd put them on all of you, but you can turn them into duds somehow and water boy can just slip out."

"I have a name, you know." Suigetsu muttered.

"Don't care yet, un."

Sasuke stared at Deidara, measuring the pros and cons of the whole deal.

"Where did you say this priest was?"

"Nara forest. No clue where that is other than being near Konoha, though, un."

Sasuke nodded, almost to himself. "I know where it is."

"So do we have a deal?"

There was a long, stretched-out silence.

"…I'll do it."

o.o.o.o.o

That night found five figures arranged around a campfire, in a rather strange way. Tell me, readers, what do you think of when I tell you this order?

Suigetsu.

Deidara.

Juugo.

Karin.

Sasuke.

Here's what I think of when I see that in my mind's eye:

From the brightest star to the dimmest one, and then a black hole!

Okay, no, not really. But it's a funny comparison, especially after you consider the meaning behind Black Hole Sue and what Sasuke actually _is_ in terms of the canon plotli—

"No one cares, un!" Deidara shouted at the sky.

"Who are you—" Karin was cut off as Deidara quickly brought a hand up.

"The authoress speaks, and she speaks directly to us. She will tell us what she needs." Deidara made his voice husky, deep and mysterious, glancing around as though in suspicion.

"…Are you okay?"

_I request entertainment!_

There were suddenly four shinobi with weapons out and battle stances ready, and one that just seemed confused.

"Uh… author-b****? Did they just hear you, un?"

_Yes. I request entertainment._

…_Or fear. Fear is good too. It counts as entertainment. It amuses me._

"Bakuhatsu, what the h*** is going on?" Suigetsu growled, eyes still searching the area.

"How long is this going to last for, un?" Deidara asked the sky, completely nonchalant and ignoring everything that Taka was doing.

…_I'll end it now._

"Why?"

_Because it was pointless and stupid?_

"As good a reason as any, un. Probably better, actually."

Yeah, I'll just go now.

"Let me guess, un, they can't hear you unless you're in italics?"

Hole in one, dearie. Bye.

And Deidara was left amused, while Taka was left confused.

o.o.o.o.o

The first time Deidara switched genders, there was a slight uproar.

It wasn't at a hot springs or anything of the like. Deidara drove them hard, making them go as quickly as possible so that they could get Hidan as soon as possible; the bomber didn't allow them to rest in cushy hotels or take short vacations. It was just at a random camp they made one night, when Deidara's watch went off a few days late (exploding had made it a little under the weather) and he just decided to go along with it and switch.

"Who… Deidara-san?" Karin had… _issues…_ with Deidara, but was well aware of the fact that said nukenin was S-rank, and thus much superior to her in terms of power. Respect wasn't something she particularly _wanted_ to give, considering the fact that Deidara had forced her into wearing an explosive collar, but she knew that she diminished her chances of surviving the whole ordeal if she withheld it. But she wasn't so lacking in pride as to use "-sama," nor so coquettish as to use "-kun." So she went with the standard, and hoped that it would be enough.

But right now isn't about Karin and her pride, or her fear of death. Right now is about Karin reacting to the fact that she saw Deidara in a dress, with visible curves, when she'd seen none before when the man had been shirtless.

"Aw, surprised?" Deidara smirked at her, sitting down on a log that had been placed around the campfire. "Haven't you looked at those bingo books of yours, un? I'm _known _for this."

"But we saw you!" Karin pointed at the chest on the blonde. "With no shirt! You had no breasts!"

"Tell me, did Orochimaru ever get angry about one of his technique scrolls being stolen, un?" Deidara tilted her head to the side. "One with a full-body sex-change medical technique, un?"

Karin stared at her, mouth agape. "That was _you?_"

"Of course, un. Who else would have done that?"

"I don't know, I might've." Suigetsu shrugged by the campfire, not nearly as thrown as Sasuke or Juugo were by the change. "Steal it, give it to some poor sucker to try out and then run away without telling them how to change back. Seems like a pretty good idea to me."

Deidara laughed, a high, pealing sound that struck them because it was the first time they had heard her laugh in a manner that wasn't mocking or similarly malicious, just _happy_. "I like the way you think, kid, un. You're not bad for one of Orochimaru's, un."

"Hey, I wasn't 'one of Orochimaru's.' I was there against my will, being experimented on, inside a tank. I was as far from being one of his as anyone else in Hebi, probably more than the others."

Deidara shrugged. "Hey, I wasn't in Akatsuki of my own free will at first, but I got used to it, and it's a nice place now. I have friends and even consider some of them my family now. You might've done the same."

"Yeah… no." Suigetsu shook his head.

"You should really change your group name, un, especially since you're coming to the Akatsuki base with me if you want to find Itachi." Deidara mused. "They're not really big fans of Orochimaru after the s*** he pulled while defecting, and as associated as you all are with him already, you're just shooting yourselves in the foot now with this."

Sasuke latched onto the new thread of conversation like a lifeline, doing what he did best: ignoring what was right in front of him. "And just what would you suggest I change it to?"

Deidara shrugged, the movement doing distracting things to her chest, at least in the eyes of the boys that were so unused to seeing her as a woman. "H*** if I know. Your team, your name, as far as I'm concerned. You could keep going with the animal theme, if you want. You got any animals you associate with yourself other than snakes?"

Sasuke was silent for a while.

"I suppose… we could go with…" So hesitant, about such a simple thing. Silly Sasuke. "Taka."

"…Okay. Your choice." Deidara shrugged and moved over to the tents. "C'mon, kids, get some sleep."

Several seconds after she disappeared, Suigetsu piped up. "Did he just call us kids?"

"_She, at the moment. Get it right!_" Deidara's voice called, spooking them.

And then there was laughter. Only from Deidara, though.

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara did _what?_" Konan grabbed Zetsu and squeezed his shoulders tight to keep him from sinking into the floor and disappearing.

"**He blew himself up.**" The black side seemed annoyed, more than anything else. The white side quickly placated Konan. "It's fine. Deidara knew what he was doing. I'm not sure how, but he survived. **B******'s like a cockroach. Almost as hard to kill as Hidan.**"

"But you…" Konan trailed off rather quickly, a strange look coming over her face, and then turned and sprinted down the hall.

Zetsu made a face as the sounds of retching drifted toward him. "Why do they call it morning sickness when it's always happening? **I don't know. Let's just get out of here before she's done. She's still not fat enough to be slowed down by the kid.**"

"I heard that!"

Zetsu winced and disappeared.

o.o.o.o.o

One of the things that Deidara found fun was having conversations about strange topics with her new… entourage, because they tended to just get very awkward around the subjects.

Except Suigetsu. The kid had guts and a mind that had a vacation home in the gutter.

"Hey, do you think the Nidaime and Yondaime Hokage were gay, un?"

Deidara loved a perfectly timed comment like that. It made it so funny to see the spit-takes.

"Why?" Of course, the water boy was actually interested.

Deidara shrugged. "Think about it, un. The Shodai was married to Uzumaki Mito, and they definitely had at least one kid, 'cause we all know the Godaime Hokage's his granddaughter, right, un? And we know that the Sandaime Hokage was married, and from what I've heard, the Godaime might have something going on with, uh, the Toad Sannin, I think. The only two that we don't know about are the Nidaime and Yondaime."

Sasuke snorted, finally calm after the earlier… spectacle. "For all we know, _Naruto_ could be the Yondaime's kid. The coloring definitely fits."

"That would make his mother an Uzumaki, right?" Juugo asked. "Maybe she looked like Karin."

"Red hair and red eyes. Joy." Karin snorted. "What would the Nidaime's wife be like, then?"

"Something ridiculous, un." Deidara said. "Something you don't see much, just so that we can laugh at the idea, un."

"Blue hair." Suigetsu decided. "And… green eyes? And really, really bouncy, since I heard the Nidaime was a grump."

"Green eyes aren't all that uncommon." Sasuke muttered. "One of my teammates back in Konoha had them."

"The pink b****?" Deidara asked. "I fought her, I think."

"You call her a b****?" Sasuke stared at her in confusion. "She was annoying, but I don't think she was ever really a b**** to anyone. Maybe the idiot early on, but even that was gone after a while."

Deidara shrugged. "I fought her and she helped almost kill Sasori no Danna, so to me, she's a b****."

Sasuke stared and then turned back to the fire. "Right."

"We'll be in Konoha tomorrow, right? How long will it take you to show me where the Nara forest is?"

"I can get you to the general area by noon." Sasuke told her. "The area's pretty large though. At least several dozen acres."

Karin snorted. "If he's the only developed chakra there, and not moving from the spot, then it won't take me more than a few minutes to pinpoint where he is, and then it's just a matter of getting there without anyone interfering."

Deidara nodded, thinking. "You'll all help me dig him up, as well, so we should be out of the clan's holdings pretty quickly."

Suigetsu rolled his eyes. "Things never go the way they're supposed to."

Deidara sighed, sorrow clouding her eyes. "Yeah, I know."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: This… was not a good chapter. It was filler-y and it just feels really choppy. Oh well, it'll get better next chapter. I was considering adding in a little head canon that I have concerning Karin, Deidara and Suigetsu, but then I decided that having them sing as they travelled would be rather… trite. And Deidara knows that Karin is a sensor because of Sasori's old spies in Otogakure.**

**There is a reference up there that I don't expect more than one of you to get. If you can guess (other than the person I had in mind when writing it), then you get a virtual cookie. If you're the person I had in mind, then you only get a virtual cookie if this is the last chapter available when you read this, since we both know how long it's taking you to read this story.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**

**Omake for ****Crystal M. Key**** for being 300th reviewer.**

**Prompt: **Maybe Hidan and Deidara going to a movie, I dunno, and action movie? And Hidan complaining how blood doesn't splatter that way and Deidara whining about the poor explosions.

**I took it and ran with it. This presumably took place in early Shippuden or during the timeskip.**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara blinked at the movie ticket. The movie was labeled as an action, which wasn't really all that romantic of a date, but this was Hidan… besides, he reasoned, a romance would probably just be boring.

"What's the movie about, un?" Deidara glanced up at Hidan in the next seat. "I didn't actually bother checking on the way in, so…"

"Zombies, I think. I figured it was sort of fitting. And I think it said something about some sort of sci-fi alien hunters and disco-shinobi."

"…That's sounds terrible." Deidara didn't bother hiding his lack of being impressed.

"I know. It sounds hilarious. We could spend the entire time mocking it." Hidan grinned over at Deidara. "And if we get bored enough, we can just start making out to mess with the rest of the audience."

Deidara mulled it over for a second. "Yeah, okay. I can do that."

Fifteen minutes later:

"That's ridiculous."

"I know, un. The blood squirted, like, fifty feet out of that guy."

"People don't have that much blood."

"I thought that was a vampire, un?"

"I stopped caring after the pirate dingo showed up and skewered the ninja octopus. Seriously, I just can't bring myself to care." There was a short pause for several seconds. "…Definitely explains why the blood was f***ing silver, though."

"…That was terrible, un."

"How?"

"That explosion should have been a _lot_ smaller with those materials, un."

"Dei, that's not going to look good, though."

"But they could have done so much better! Made the fight in a warehouse or something, un, so that they could have had random barrels of oil everywhere and let it blow up when the building caught fire!"

"OI, DUMBA**ES! SHUT UP, WE'RE TRYING TO WATCH THE GODD*** MOVIE!"

Deidara turned in his seat. "THE MOVIE'S S*** ANYWAY, WHY DO YOU CARE?"

"S*** OR NOT, I PAID TO COME WATCH IT!"

"WELL, SCREW YOU, UN! I'M AN S-RANK, DON'T TRY TO P*** ME OFF!"

As Deidara and random civilian 32 continued to argue, Hidan sighed and went back to watching the movie.

Well, at least the rotting on the zombies was pretty cool.

o.o.o.o.o

**There may or may not have been a Twilight reference in that omake. Find it.**


	35. Digging at Your Misery

"_You're wasting trees!"  
"They'll grow back!"_

_- A female student and my history teacher._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara sat alone on watch, back to the fire as she stared out at the forest in contemplation.

She didn't react visibly to the rustling of leaves above her.

"They're not very happy with what you did, you know."

Deidara snorted. "Don't care, un. I'm not going to break any of Pein's stupid rules."

"That's not exactly the problem."

Deidara rolled her eyes. "If you're going to talk to me, un, then do it face to face, Obito."

A tall body, a familiar one, dropped from the sky and landed right in front of her. She patted the ground next to her, and he took the seat.

They sat in silence for several minutes.

"So what _was_ the problem, then, un?" Deidara muttered, unwilling to break the silence, but needing the answer despite that.

"Konan and Sasori, mostly. They're worried, though Sasori isn't very willing to admit it." Obito spoke quietly, but he didn't whisper or mumble.

Deidara laughed drily. "Should've guessed, un."

Obito frowned at her, though the mask hid it. "Don't treat it so cavalierly, Deidara. They're worried about you."

Deidara peered at him through the hair over her eye. "I know. But I have a plan, and I can handle myself. I know what I'm doing, un."

"What you're doing involves suicide techniques." Obito shot back. "If nothing else, think of Konan. If she worries too much, gets too stressed… she might miscarry."

Deidara frowned at him. "That's not… listen, can't you guys just _trust_ me, un? I know I'm the youngest one in the organization, but I can take care of myself, un."

"Tell me your plan, then." Obito said, as though it was the simplest answer in the world.

"Show me your face and we might have a deal, un." Deidara retorted. "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, but a question for a question only gives us answers, un."

Obito stared at her, scrutinizing. "With everything else you already know, I'm surprised this isn't on the list as well."

Deidara snorted. "I know the description, un, but I hear voices, not see things."

Obito was silent for several more seconds, and then sighed. "I suppose that, if this is your only demand, it's not too big."

Deidara blinked at him. "Really, un?"

Obito reached up to the mask. "You already know enough that it doesn't matter, and I'd rather not have a pregnant S-rank kunoichi trying to kill me for not taking care of you. It's a small price to pay."

Deidara held her breath as Obito slowly slid the mask off. It was exactly as she'd been told. Scars marred one side of his face, while the other showed the smooth skin of a man in his early thirties, only wrinkles tarnishing the cleaner side. There were frown lines, heavy ones, and a deep sadness in his eyes.

Deidara breathed out slowly, and reached up with one hand. "May I?"

Obito rolled his eyes, but sighed and nodded, allowing Deidara to run her fingers of the stiff skin that made up the right side of his face.

"Disgusting, isn't it?" Obito's words startled Deidara, making her jump.

"What, un?"

"The scars. They're disturbing and disgusting." Obito laughed bitterly.

"The same could be said about Kakuzu's threads, or Kisame's color, or Danna's puppet body, un." Deidara shrugged, pulling back. "Or my hands, even."

"That's different." Obito insisted.

Deidara shrugged. "Not really, un."

Obito shook his head and sighed. "Never mind you that. How about you go ahead and keep your end of the deal?"

Deidara pouted, but acquiesced.

Obito left with a disturbingly strange smirk under his masked face that night.

The next morning, none of Taka even knew that there had been a midnight meeting in the first place.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara put a hand to his head, groaning slightly. "Of all times… I should have told Tobi, un." He sighed and shook his head. "I can deal with it for a few weeks on my own."

"Oi, is something up?" Suigetsu came closer to Deidara, and his eyes landed on the blond man's hands he pointed to the objects that lay in those mouthed palms, looking so innocent in the sunlight "Are those…?"

"I'm fine, un." Deidara ground out, stuffing everything back into the hip pouch that he usually carried for this purpose.

Suigetsu blinked at him, and then turned and shouted before Deidara could stop him. "Oi, b****, get over here!"

"What do you think you're doing, un?" Deidara hissed, grabbing him by the shoulder and squeezing so tightly that it was uncomfortable. Suigetsu ignored him.

Karin came over, an irritated look on her face. "What the h*** do you two want?"

"He had some pill bottles." Suigetsu blurted out, ignoring the warning in Deidara's eyes.

Karin blinked once. Twice. Then she turned her head sharply to Deidara and held out a hand. "Out where I can see them, now."

"No."

"Are you ignoring the medic in the group?" Karin demanded. "Put them where I can see them, now!"

Deidara glared at her. "You have no power over me, un, girl."

Karin took a step closer. "Listen, blondie. I don't care what rank you are right now. This mission is one that _you_ want to get done, and if you manage to compromise it by playing around with your health when you don't know how, then it's your own d*** fault."

Deidara stared at her, measuring, and then his eyes narrowed slightly. "You're luck you're useful, un, sweetheart."

He pulled the bottles out and tossed them to her. "Schizophrenia and Type II Bipolarity. Antidepressants for the latter, un, but I don't know what we're using to actually treat the former."

Karin looked at the labels on the bottles, muttering to herself, and then closed her eyes to think. Eventually, she opened them back up and nodded at Deidara. "I can get it refilled for you at the next major village. I have the credentials for it."

She turned around and stalked back over to Sasuke, leaving Deidara blinking in surprise.

Suigetsu snickered in the background.

o.o.o.o.o

Karin didn't show it, but the medicine had caused her to start thinking. The entire situation was precarious anyway, but she knew how to handle it. The difference was that this man, this woman, was many times more skilled than her, and many times more unstable. She could deal with Juugo after all her time with him, but Deidara was a new thing, an unknown, and she didn't like it.

She didn't like it at all, because knowing about the mental disorder s/he had only made her doubt herself and her opinions on just where Deidara belonged on the moral spectrum. If he was hiding something like this, there could be many more secrets kept in the dark as well.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara flung out an arm to signal her… entourage… to stop. "We're at the edge of Konoha, un, right?"

Sasuke nodded. "Why?"

"Firecracker," Deidara snapped her fingers in Karin's direction, ignoring the younger girl's scowl. "You can sense chakra, but can you hide it too, un?"

Karin brought a hand up and tilted it from side to side. "Not as well as I can sense. A decently talented sensor-nin will be able to feel a core as large as yours and Juugo's. Even Sasuke-kun and the idiot would be hard to hide."

Deidara frowned, but accepted the shortcomings for what they were. "Well, then I guess we'll just have to get in and out as fast as possible, un."

She threw a dirty look at Suigetsu when he snorted at the wording. "Play time's over, water boy. We're on a mission right now, un, and you are going to take it seriously, or Jashin help me, I _will_ kill you."

Suigetsu's smirk slid off his face. "What?"

"You heard me, un, water boy." Deidara snapped her head back to the front, scanning the forest one last time. "Lead the way, little Locus, un."

Sasuke made a small, disparaging noise at the nickname, but leapt ahead, and Deidara followed along right behind, the rest trailing along after her.

Suigetsu brought up the back of the pack, and muttered to himself once Deidara was out of earshot. "Why doesn't anyone ever use my name?"

"I heard that, un!"

At least, he thought she was out of earshot.

Ah, the wonders of the fourth wall.

Don't you just love it?

o.o.o.o.o

Sasuke landed on a tree branch and stayed. Deidara overshot a bit to the next branch, but quickly backtracked and jumped back to the littlest Uchiha.

"We're at the Nara grounds, un?"

Sasuke nodded. "I've brought us up to the edge. The shape is fairly irregular, but the longest path across isn't more than about 4 or 5 kilometers, if I remember correctly."

Deidara glanced over at Karin. "Alright, Firecracker, un. Let's see you do your trick."

Karin glared at her, but put her hands together and concentrated. After exactly twenty three seconds of concentration (Deidara kept track), she opened her eyes back up.

She pointed to the southwest. "A little over two and half kilometers, in that direction. It won't take too long to get there. I can pinpoint it more accurately once we get closer."

"You sure, un?"

Karin looked at her distastefully. "The only other chakra sources large enough to be a human's _aren't_ human. I can tell a deer from an S-rank, alright?"

Deidara held her hands up in mock surrender. "Alright, alright, un. Show us the way, _sweetheart_."

Karin made a face at the moniker, but turned and left despite that.

Deidara smirked and followed.

Neither girl's expression went unnoticed by the others.

o.o.o.o.o

"Here." Karin landed on a patch of ground that was bare of grass. "It's muted and weak, but there's a human chakra signature coming from this spot."

"Thank you, un." Deidara waved Juugo closer. "You ready to help?"

Juugo just smiled at her, allowing the markings that characterized his clan to begin spreading across his skin. His arms morphed, becoming larger and flatter. They weren't quite shovels or spades, but they were close enough to work in the desired manner more effectively than regular hands. He began to dig.

"Oi, boys." Deidara caught Suigetsu and Sasuke's attention without a care for politeness. "Go help him once he gets to the sensitive parts, un. It'll go faster."

"How are we carrying this guy out?" Suigetsu asked. "I mean, we don't exactly have the time to heal him on the spot, you know?"

Deidara looked uncomfortable. "It's not exactly the best option, un, but I have a…" She trailed off, looking rather miserable.

"A what?" Sasuke prodded.

"…A burlap sack, un." Deidara sighed and ran a hand down her face. "I'd rather have something better to carry him, but our options are pretty limited, un, you know."

Suigetsu bit his tongue to keep from making a comment on it. Deidara looked unhappy enough already. He didn't need to try and make it worse.

He turned to the rapidly growing hole that Juugo was digging, ignoring Deidara as she instructed Karin to keep a lookout for any incoming Konoha shinobi.

"I found a hand."

Suigetsu blinked as Juugo stood up and turned around to gently place something on the ground. Suigetsu came closer, curious…

And then recoiled in horror.

The flesh was desiccated, and riddled with patches where it looked like it had begun to rot, or been nibbled on by small underground animals. The nails were of varying lengths, and chipped and yellow. The point where the wrist would be was also where the flesh ended, red and green and grey, signs of where the meat was half-dead and half alive.

"Oh, Kami…"

Suigetsu jumped a little as he heard the voice from beside him. He turned his head to see Deidara. The blond woman had a hand up to her mouth, which was open in mild horror, and there were tears budding at her eyes.

Suigetsu gulped. This wasn't the woman he'd grown to know over the past several days of travelling. This woman… she was heartbroken. And as severely as she might have threatened him before, she had still been a lot more fun than the others, and she was, dare he say, almost a friend by this point.

And if she had to keep looking at this for too long, if they spent too much time digging this man up…

Suigetsu turned and jumped down into the large hole to help out Juugo.

o.o.o.o.o

Karin kept her senses away from the people that were digging around behind her. At least, she tried to. Unfortunately, she slipped every so often, and was inundated with the deluge of conflicting emotions from the woman that had spent the last few days ordering Taka around without a care in the world.

She was so happy that they were doing this, and there was love in there too, but so much guilt, so much utter _misery_… Even Sasuke was easier to read right now. Karin really couldn't usually read emotions from a person's chakra casually, but if she'd had several days to familiarize herself with a person, to learn to read them normally, she could pick up on flickers, on truth and dishonesty, on… on everything Deidara was feeling right now.

Happiness.

Misery.

Love.

Guilt.

Fear.

Hope.

Everything was so jumbled, so mixed and pulsing and utterly terrifying to even try to read, because there was just so _much…_

Karin did her best to keep her attention focused away from the older woman.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasuke frowned as saw Suigetsu jump in to help Juugo with carrying out the rotting body parts. It wasn't that Suigetsu was helping that surprised him, but the fact that Suigetsu was helping unbidden, and the expression that Suigetsu had worn before jumping in.

A quick scan of Karin had revealed that the kunoichi, seated on the ground in a lotus position and scanning the area to make sure no one showed up unbidden, was biting her lip and constantly wincing in a way he hadn't seen her act before.

Quite frankly, the only variable he could think of that could cause both of them to act in such a manner was…

Sasuke's eyes drifted over to Deidara's back. She was turned away from him, facing the two in the hole, and on her knees. Every time one of the two in the hole uncovered something, she would take it, carefully brush the dirt off, and gently place it with all the other pieces of the slowly forming cadaver.

Sasuke walked around the hole, eyes still on Deidara, and froze when he finally came into view of her face.

She was crying.

Tears were streaming down Deidara's face as she took each limb or patch of torso out, her body wracked with sobs. The makeup that Sasuke had noticed before and ignored was no longer as perfectly applied as it had been, but was streaked down her face in long tear tracks.

If he listened closely enough, he could hear her whispering.

"Oh Kami… Hidan, I'm so sorry, un… I'm so, so sorry… Hidan, please be alright, un, please…"

Sasuke felt sick to his stomach.

He didn't want to watch this.

Sasuke joined Suigetsu and Juugo.

o.o.o.o.o

Suigetsu wasn't doing too bad, honestly. So long as he focused on his supposed job, he could ignore the breakdown that was happening above him.

He didn't _like_ what he was doing, but it was a distraction. Find a finger here, a patella there, half a rib in the corner with some flesh hanging off it… it wasn't _overly_ disgusting… not… really…

Ahem.

In any case, it was a distraction. And as far as distractions went… well, yes. At least he could find parts of the scythe once in a while, and at one point he'd found a strange necklace that had made Deidara burst into tears and, in a move that made him blush, hugged him to her chest in gratitude.

"_Hidan!_" The yell drew his attention, and he turned to see Juugo handing a head to Deidara. The eyes were closed, and Suigetsu doubted the man, if that's what he was, could hear them, but turned back to his job.

Then his hand brushed against something as he sifted through the dirt, something that was hard and not at all normal.

Why was such a small box down here?

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara cradled Hidan's head in her lap, willing him to wake up, but receiving no answer.

"There's somebody coming!"

Deidara's head snapped up at Karin's shout. The redheaded girl was standing, facing the south. "Team of four, Chunin to Jounin rank. I don't recognize any of them."

The boys began to jump out of the hole, prepared to fight, but Deidara stopped them, snapping harshly. "No! We don't have time for that, un! I'll take care of anyone that comes here, un, you just finish the job!"

They hesitated, but one last reprimand sent them back down. Deidara turned to face the incoming team.

She recognized two of them. The Hyuuga boy and the girl with the buns in her hair had been part of the teams that had stolen half of the Sanbi from her. The other two, though, she didn't recognize.

One was pale, with flat black hair and a fake smile. The other was frowning severely with a cigarette in his mouth, and his hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail.

The one with the ponytail frowned at her. "Who are you?"

Deidara knew she must look a mess, given that she'd just been sobbing, and she had a disembodied, near-dead head in her lap. But she put the head to the side and stood up gracefully. "Deidara of Akatsuki, un."

The boy's eyes narrowed, and he glanced to the Hyuuga and the girl for confirmation, receiving it in a pair of nods.

"Why are you digging that… man… up?" He spat out the word like he'd meant to say monster.

"That is my business, un, and no one else's." Deidara's reply was cold. "Quite frankly, I'd be thankful if you would just _leave_ right now, un."

"You're the one that's trespassing on my family's land." The boy retorted.

Deidara's eyes narrowed, a sneaking suspicion entering her head. She slipped a hand into her clay pouch. "Are you the one that did this?"

The question was cold, clinical, but those with practice in reading emotion, those like Karin, and Sai, and Neji… they could feel and see the growing anger behind Deidara's expression.

Unfortunately for Shikamaru, none of them were quick enough to warn him.

"Yes."

There was silence for several seconds, and then Deidara burst into action, screaming.

"_I am __**going to KILL YOU!**_"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I just wanted to get to 100k words when I saw my word count earlier today.**

**Instead, I almost made myself cry.**

**I feel like such a b**** now.**

**In any case, we've hit 100k words, and if that's not enough for a rec, I'm wondering what is.**

**This should have been a happy author's Note, celebrating the milestone word count achievement, but after a chapter like that, I just can't do it.**

**Now, I feel like s*** after writing that, so goodnight.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	36. You're Not Even Worth The Effort

"_Wouldn't [Japan] still be mad at America, though?"  
"You know how your computer breaks a lot, [Name]?"  
*Silence*  
*Laughter*  
"No, that's because it's made in America."  
"O~oh!"_

_- During a discussion about Japan supplying the US with war things during the Korean War, after WWII. Some guy, usual guy, everyone, teacher, everyone._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Has anyone else noticed how prone I am to giving people lasting injuries and describing them in disturbing detail? **

o.o.o.o.o

"_I am __**going to KILL YOU!**_"

Shikamaru's eyes widened as the girl, who was by now a familiar face to most of Naruto's circle of friends, attacked him, seemingly out of the blue.

Rage colored her face as threw bomb after bomb at him, many of the projectiles flying wide as her anger caused her aim to go wild.

Shikamaru dodged time and again, and at one point, after he had already gotten rather severe injury on his leg, the crater-like gouge in his leg burnt and sizzling, managed to fling up his arms and form the seals necessary to—

"Kagemane no Jutsu, complete." He grit out, trying to ignore the stinging in his leg.

Deidara strained against the bonds, and then the tension in her muscles disappeared, her eyes closing.

Shikamaru took a step forward, causing Deidara to do the same, and then another and another, stopping when they were only a few steps away from one another. Then a smirk curled over Deidara's face, even as Neji shot forward to incapacitate her, and Shikamaru froze in horror as the color leached from the woman's body, turning the same color as the clay of her bombs.

The voice came from above, and Shikamaru turned his head even as he jumped back with his good leg, to see nothing.

"Katsu, you little s***, un!"

Shikamaru had trouble avoiding this explosion, and ended up turning around to avoid the brunt of the explosion, the heat from it searing the cloth of his chunin vest against his back, the ridges of his spine pressing into the melting synthetic material.

She'd switched herself out with a clone before the fight had even started, he realized in horror.

The missed throws had been faked.

She had been in control of the situation the entire time.

Shikamaru heard TenTen yell something, and smelled the smoke that signaled the unsealing of one of the kunoichi's weapons. He couldn't focus on the fight though… his vision was growing darker, fuzzier. He'd lost too much blood, was feeling too much pain, to stay awake.

He felt something cold and slippery pick him up from where he was on the ground, crouched over as he was. The smell of ink entered his nose, and he relaxed, if only slightly, as the ink construct brought him over to Sai. TenTen, from what he could hear, was fighting Deidara, with help from Sai, and not doing very well. Neji had apparently gone over to fight the men that were busy finishing up with the digging, but the fight was three on one in that case, and… and…

Shikamaru could only think one thing as he lost consciousness:

_Geniuses or not, none of us are getting out of this alive._

o.o.o.o.o

Suigetsu bit his lip to keep from cursing as a strike from the pale-eyed boy _solidified_ his arm. Half of Suigetsu's style was based off of his Kekkei Genkai, and if he didn't have that to rely on… well, things weren't impossible, but they were certainly difficult.

Suigetsu dropped back, letting Sasuke and Juugo take over for a minute, jumping down into the hole to (hopefully) grab the last few parts of the cadaver and get out of there before they had Konoha on their a** like Karin wanted to be on Sasuke's.

…That simile fit way too well. He was never using it again.

He sat at the bottom, breath heaving, and leaned back on his hands, stretching his neck as the sounds of fighting occupied the area above him. As it was, they probably didn't even need him, and…

Suigetsu blinked and glanced down at his hand, realizing that there was something cold, smooth, and hard digging into the heel of his palm. He turned slightly, shifting his weight to his other arm as he sifted through the dirt.

He came up with a ring, one with a kanji, the kanji for 'three,' on it.

Suigetsu's eyes narrowed in thought. He'd seen Deidara wearing a similar ring, the whole time they'd travelled. Juugo had once commented, in private, that Deidara's hand often drifted to the ring subconsciously when Akatsuki was mentioned.

This one must've been the 'dead' guy's, then, Suigetsu decided. Maybe it had a seal or something in or on it, meant for only Akatsuki members?

Well, there was only one thing to do, then.

Suigetsu picked the ring up and forced some chakra into it.

o.o.o.o.o

A head of orange hair turned sharply. Pein stared at his ring with Rinnegan eyes as it pulsed with unfamiliar chakra from a very familiar ring signal.

He frowned and pushed his own chakra into it.

"Who are you?" Pein asked, taking care to make his voice as authoritative as possible.

"_Whoa, hey, um… my name's Suigetsu."_

Pein frowned (and back in his recuperative chamber, Nagato did the same). The voice was young, younger than even Deidara.

"What are you doing with this ring?"

The boy on the other end of the rings dithered for a second or two. "_I found it at the bottom of the hole that Deidara had us dig to get the dead immortal priest guy."_

Pein sighed. He really should have expected this earlier. "I see. And why did you attempt to contact me?"

"_Uh, well… it was kind of an accident. I just found it after I jumped in to take a break from the fighting after that Hyuuga got me, and decided to see if there was anything sealed inside._"

Pein ignored the blatant recklessness of the action in favor of questioning the boy on what he considered a more important issue. "Why is there fighting occurring?"

"_Uh… 'cause the guy that buried the priest showed up and Deidara decided to try an' kill 'im?"_ Suigetsu sounded hesitant.

"Stop him."

"…_What?_"

"Stop Deidara. We don't need a war on our hands. Not yet."

"_Uh… okay. I'll… I'll try, I guess. The fighting's mostly over, though. I don't think anyone's dead. Oh, and she's a girl right now._"

"Don't kill them, then. Take them hostage, or for information, but do not kill them. It will only incite a quicker response. If it is obvious that Deidara is involved, Konoha will be lax. Keeping them alive will benefit Akatsuki in the long run." He needed a way to be sure that his orders were followed, though… "If Deidara herself does not contact me within fifteen minutes, I will send one of our own to check on the situation."

"_Okay. Sasuke's here too, though, so that might change a few things._"

"Just do as I told you, boy." Pain cut the connection, and felt it hesitantly disappear from the other end as well.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. D***it, Deidara.

Now he'd have to tell Sasori.

And Tobi.

And _Konan._

Pein groaned and put his head in his hands.

o.o.o.o.o

Karin turned her head to stare as Suigetsu burst out of the hole in the ground and headed straight for… Deidara-san?

She blinked as, instead of fighting anyone, the idiot actually started _shouting_ at the bomber. There was a shouting match, during which neither of them, surprisingly, got killed, but there was still the whole _principle_ of the matter, and… and she'd gotten off topic, hadn't she?

Deidara looked irritated, now, and the chakra that Karin could sense from her corroborated that fact. The dirty look she sent to the attackers, particularly the boy with the spiky ponytail, showed that the fight would be over quickly.

A vial was quickly slipped out of a pocket, and seconds later, one of Deidara's creations exploded and released an orange haze.

And then over half the clearing lost consciousness.

Karin edged over to the only person left in the clearing that was awake other than herself and Deidara. "Juugo?"

The mottled dark skin began fading back to Juugo's normal color, and he turned to Karin. "Do you know what happened?"

"It was a knock-out gas. I can nullify it if I focus due to being a medic, and Deidara-san probably has acquired immunity to it, if she was using it at all. And you…"

"We can blame the curse seal enzyme." Juugo said as he finally returned to normal, and then turned to look at the woman that was _probably_ their leader at the moment.

"Deidara-san?" Karin approached her slowly. The woman hadn't moved since everyone had gone down.

"…I'm fine, un." Deidara shook her head and seemed to deflate. She pulled a pair of syringes out of a scroll (where was she holding them all?) and handed them to Karin. "Use these to wake up the Hozuki and the Uchiha, un. We need to take these guys back to Ame, and the three of us can't carry everyone back alone until we get there, un. We'll be traveling slowly anyway, so we need as many people working on this as possible, un."

Karin nodded, taking the syringes and going to wake up Sasuke-kun and the water-logged idiot. She wasn't in any hurry to irritate Deidara, not after what had just happened. After she finished, ensuring that the liquid was pumping through their veins and on its way to waking them up, she turned, only to find Deidara apparently arguing with thin air.

"-m fine! I used Danna's poison in a bomb, un, took them out without hurting them, un, everything!"

Karin avoided Deidara as she edged around, back towards Juugo, who had already carried Suigetsu and Sasuke over to a clear area where they could wake up without trouble. The two weren't close, but Karin trusted him to protect her if necessary.

"Alright, alright." Deidara still had her hand on her ring, but her eyes were closed, and she seemed to be resisting the urge to put a hand to her temple. "I'll stay under control, un. I didn't kill anyone now, un, did I?"

Karin noticed that Suigetsu seemed to be waking up, and leaned down to quickly shove a hand over his mouth, putting the finger of her other hand to her lips and then pointing at Deidara.

"Fine, but do I at least get permission to punish any of them if they p*** me off, un? I won't make it permanent or dangerous or even painful, un… of course that's what I'm thinking of doing as a punishment, un, what else would I do?"

Suigetsu, when he was fully aware, shoved her away and threw her a dirty look.

Deidara turned around and strode over, just as Sasuke began waking up. "We're taking these guys hostage, un. Uchiha, Hozuki, each of you carry one, un. Juugo, you take two. I'll… I'll carry Hidan, un. Karin, you keep your senses open to make sure no one follows us, un. You're not carrying anyone."

"Oi, why doesn't the red b**** have to carry anyone?" Suigetsu complained, finally getting to his feet.

"Because she's the medic, un. I want her to have as much energy as possible so that she can heal Hidan tonight, un." Deidara folded her arms, daring Suigetsu to object.

"I can't."

Karin's comment brought Deidara's head whipping around, eyes narrowed. "I hope you're joking, un."

Karin crossed her arms. "Don't ask for the impossible. I can do it eventually, but I can't do it all in one night. He's still alive, but getting him back into shape from _that—_" Karin pointed at the cadaverous limbs. "—Is going to take a lot more than just one evening of effort."

"You're lucky you're the only here that's capable of healing anyone here, un, missy." Deidara glowered. "Fine. Just let me put the collars on them, un. Check to see if there's anything left in the hole, un."

Karin blinked, and tried to quash the nasty satisfaction in her gut at seeing that someone else was going to suffer the indignity of the clay collars.

Five minutes later, they were off.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Did anyone else notice that no one bothered to heal Shikamaru?**

**And yes, for all you Shika fans, I kept him alive. But quite frankly, his current situation isn't much of an improvement over dying. Nor is anyone else's.**

**I've recently begun shipping Menma x Karin (MenKa). I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that does, but still… it's such a crack pairing. I'm probably never going to write it anywhere, but it's a funny one.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	37. Yeah, You're Not Going Anywhere

"_What I find weird is when people start bagging on Japanese car companies."  
"What? Toyota employs more American workers than any other car company."  
"Hey, I'm not the one saying it. I __**love**__ Japanese cars; they don't __**break**__."_

_- Random guy, my teacher, and the random guy again._

o.o.o.o.o

Of the hostages, Sai woke first.

Karin's head snapped to the side when she felt the movement of his chakra change, felt it spike and shudder as he woke up.

"Suigetsu, he's waking up!" She snapped out, not bothering to turn around or stop. Deidara wouldn't stand for it, she knew. They had to get as far from Konoha as possible by nightfall.

And then she heard a thud.

At this point, she _did_ stop, and turned around to stare at Suigetsu.

Who had dropped Sai to the forest floor.

"What do you think you're doing, idiot?!" Karin glared at him. No, she definitely wasn't happy. Not at all. She didn't want to get Deidara angry if she didn't have to, and Suigetsu wasn't helping matters.

Deidara just growled out a short order to pick the pale boy back up, now that he was unconscious again, and mentioned that Suigetsu would be getting punished later, and not in a way he'd find fun.

Taka members were now questioning their decision to follow Deidara.

But they'd made it this far.

They could make it through.

o.o.o.o.o

Neji woke quietly and instantly. The second he _could_ wake up fully, he did.

Unfortunately, controlling your breathing, heartbeat, and facial muscles wasn't enough.

Not when there was a sensor only a few feet away.

Less than a second after Neji woke up, he found his arm wrenched up behind his back, a blade pressed to his neck, and grinning purple eyes only inches from his own pearly orbs (and orbs they were, for most people didn't have eyes quite so strange and uniform, so creepy and blank, as to be called by the wonderful name of _orbs_).

"Make even one move and I'll slit your throat." The boy with the pale blue hair said, seeming inordinately happy at the idea.

"We need him alive, un." The voice was amused but unimpressed, slightly sardonic, and terrifyingly familiar.

It hit Neji then. He hadn't expected to live through what happened, and yet, here he was. And by the looks of it, he was a prisoner.

He was a hostage.

The boy with the sword scoffed and stood up, turning and strutting back to his spot in the circle around the… fire.

Camping out for the night? Likely, but not certain. It was still fairly light out, and Neji didn't doubt that they wanted to get as far away from Konoha as quickly as possible. There was the smell of something cooking, meat or fish, and there was an air of settlement around them, showing that they weren't planning on moving any time soon.

Neji's eyes connected with Sasuke's. The traitor. The one that Neji, and every other member of the retrieval team bar Shikamaru, had nearly died to bring back, and still failed.

Sasuke stared at him, and Neji stared back. And then they both flinched as a piercing whistle hit their ears.

"Are you two done yet, un?"

Neji looked over, his eyes connecting to the 'victim' of Akatsuki. Neji wasn't very convinced of her innocence in the matters, but he had played along to Naruto's plans, tried his best to go along and change her.

Given the disdainful look on her face, she was _never_ going to even _sympathize_ with Konoha.

"Great… listen, buddy." Deidara looked right at Neji, still looking unimpressed. "I'm not happy with your village right now, un. Not at all. I think I've made that pretty clear, particularly in concerns to your spiky little friend there, un." She nodded in his direction, and Neji glanced around quickly, noting the closest body to his own, still unconscious, to be Shikamaru, and then turned back to Deidara. She continued with a smug smile. "Fortunately for you, the Leader of Akatsuki wants you alive. Congratulations, you just survived your second fight with an S-rank nukenin."

Neji frowned, his brain working overtime. He couldn't let himself be used as an information source. There was no visible way out, though there may be one when the others woke up. However, if they couldn't escape, he knew what he, and the others, had to do to keep Konoha safe.

Then he realized he could no longer move.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Deidara's laugh was humorless. "Anti-suicide seals are a wondrous little creation, un. If you think about it, you're paralyzed. If you actually act on it, well…" She laughed again, cold and cruel and, to Neji's ears, faking both emotions. The laugh was forced. Deidara wasn't really enjoying the threats, but she found them necessary. Or possibly, she _was_ enjoying it, but disturbed at herself for it.

Or maybe it was something completely different.

"And don't try running away, either." She laughed again, like shattering crystal. "Those bombs around your necks are primed to go off as soon as you go more than a few dozen meters from me."

Neji frowned, finding his facial muscles working once more. "And if we are stolen from you in turn?"

Deidara shrugged. "No big loss. The only one I'm concerned with is pineapple-head, and that's because I want him to _suffer_."

The grin and viciousness on her face this time… it wasn't faked. Neji didn't show just how much that look terrified him.

"Why…" He licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry, and started over. "Why would you want Shikamaru to suffer in particular?"

Deidara's smile, so sugary and sweet, was utterly terrifying, especially since Neji couldn't read her eyes, seeing as they were closed. "Well, he kind of half-killed Hidan. I know Hida-kun's immortal and all… but it still wasn't nice, not at _all_, un."

She giggled, and her eyes opened, barely slits, her tone turning conversational, which was extremely unnerving to Neji. He was used to different intimidation methods, not… not whatever it was that Deidara was using. "Tell me, un, what would you do if someone _blasted_ the love of your life to pieces and _buried_ them at the bottom of a hole and _left them there to __**rot?"**_

Her voice didn't grow any louder, but it grew more forceful, more angry, her face losing its calm and sweet demeanor.

Neji gulped.

The priest had been in a relationship with Deidara.

Shikamaru had apparently doomed Naruto's little goal to eternal failure.

Deidara would never love Konoha.

Some things were eternal.

The anger on a loved one's behalf was one of them.

o.o.o.o.o

"Start with his head, un."

Karin looked up at Deidara, frowning. "Are you sure?"

"Well, you'll be putting his body back together slowly, right? I want to talk to him, un, and I need him awake anyway."

Karin shook her head. "No, that's not a good idea. It would be better to heal each piece individually, and then put him back together at the end. It'll make transportation easier, and make it less likely for my work to be undone when we move him by the jostling that will occur while running. And it would be best for me to heal the head last, so that he doesn't have to deal with the pain."

"We need him awake if we want to get the information we need to get those seals made, un." Deidara fixed her glare on Karin, ignoring the hushed whispers behind her, both from the boys of Taka and form the hostages from Taka. "And those seals NEED to be made."

Karin wavered, but nodded. "I'll induce a coma after that to prevent him from waking up when it isn't necessary."

Deidara nodded, a sharp move. "Now, what was that you said about re-breaking him?"

"It's not very complicated," Karin sighed. "It's… if we put him together first, then there are going to be issues. His body is frail at the moment, and the movement from going at high speeds will be too much and break recently healed areas."

Deidara laughed, and there was an amused edge to it. "We're not running anymore. We're out of Konoha and we've got you to fix Hidan, un. Our way back to Akatsuki is going to be far more leisurely than our way to Konoha. Less likely to get the little Locus—" Sasuke twitched, but Deidara ignored him. "—exhausted before his 'big fight,' too, un."

Karin bit her lip, thinking it over. "…It's still better to heal him piecewise and then put him together when he's capable of moving on his own again."

Deidara looked at her, measuring. Then she nodded sharply again. "You're the medic. You know more about this than I do anyway, un. I'll trust your judgment on this."

Karin nodded and turned back to the cadaverous limbs laid out on a blanket before her. "Heal the head first, right…" She picked it up, unflinching at the texture of the skin and the hollow cheeks. She placed Hidan's head in her lap and closed her eyes, sensing the areas that needed to be fixed, and how.

She picked up a kunai and slit her thumb, moving to put a dot on the tip of each finger. A shouted question from Suigetsu, a snippy reply that Hidan couldn't bite her, and a snappy command from Deidara later, she flashed through several handsigns. Her hands glowed green, but there was a strange reddish-gold mixed in as well, streaming from the blood instead of her whole hand as the green medical chakra was.

"Alright… easy does it…" Karin muttered to herself as she lightly placed her hands on Hidan's head, pressing the tips of her middle fingers against his temples. Deidara stood behind Karin, watching the healing with wide eyes. Slowly, ever so slowly, the life seemed to return to the head. The half-gone eyes, dried out and immobile, filled in as fluid and life filled the ocular cells again. The dry skin filled out, the cheekbones growing less pronounced. The chapped lips filled in slightly, and his ears were no longer shriveled.

Blood also began to drip from the bottom of his neck, but it wasn't nearly as disturbing as seeing him as a husk of a man, the way the rest of his body still was.

Karin let out a large breath of air, drooping as she finished up. "I won't be able to do that for more than an arm and a leg again tonight. The head is the most complicated due to the brain, but I'm done now."

She gave the head to Deidara, one hand still on Hidan's forehead, glowing. "He'll wake up in three, two, one…"

She pulled away her hand.

Deidara held her breath as pale purple eyes slowly blinked open, taking a long time to focus on her.

"…Deidara?"

She smiled, unaware of the tears that were once more going down her face. "Hey, Hidan."

"…I should've f***ing guessed."

"You should've _known_, un."

"…Yeah."

"…I have news, un, and you're not going to like it."

"…F***."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: A happy chapter! Ish. Because I actually **_**like**_ **Neji as a character, and this chapter was just a little… well, Deidara's not very forgiving, shall we say.**

**Ja ne, **

**Phoenix**


	38. Punishment: Sai Doesn't Get It

"_No, it wasn't kissing the horse, it was the other part with the horse."  
"Uh… they didn't like the Victoria's Secret part. I mean, I was covered up, I was wearing a bra!"  
"The one part that I thought they were going to get mad about, when I said that Obama was trash, that AP diplomas were trash, and that you should all just go die in a fire, they didn't get mad about. That was the part that they thought was legitimately funny."_

_- The usual guy. It was about a video he was supposed to show for what basically amounts to a school-based male beauty pageant, that he was in as Mr. IB, which is the reason for all the AP jokes.  
…His video was banned, and he dropped out of the competition due to the fact that everything he had planned was apparently extremely insulting and inappropriate to the point where the school was considering disciplinary action._

This is… this was not the quote I had planned on using for this chapter. But I chose to put it up for a reason: look up the videos by Olivia Ives on YouTube. Find the Mr. PHS video. Find the Rolling in the DP video.

That pale, lanky guy in the blogger glasses?

That's the usual guy.

You're welcome.

o.o.o.o.o

Hidan was, by and large, not considered very smart by the rest of Akatsuki.

It wasn't that he was _stupid_, necessarily. He was just… not as smart in the same _ways_ as the rest of them. Kakuzu, Deidara, Konan, and Sasori were all mathematical geniuses, especially Sasori, and they all had their own intellectual specialty branching off from it, from economics, to chemistry and physics (for both Deidara and Konan on the last one), to engineering. Itachi had been a prodigy as a child, and the complexity of some of his genjutsu was staggering. Tobi was just playing them all like a piano sometimes, and Pein was… Pein. It didn't matter if he said anything smart, so long as he said it with the authority and intimidation necessary to make people just assume that he was. Zetsu was… not really an issue, given that the black half was an offshoot of Madara, and had at least _some_ intelligence to it as a result. And Kisame was great at spontaneous battle plans, to the point where he wasn't poked fun at for his lack of conventional intelligence.

Hidan, on the other hand, wasn't like that. He had an uncouth way of speaking, and he wasn't exactly prone to making battle plans, or any real plans at all. He wasn't big on genjutsu or any forms of math or science, and he wasn't particularly good at authoritative intimidation like Pein.

But just because he didn't choose to speak well, didn't mean he didn't know _language_. He'd mastered old texts simply by virtue of learning to read languages that had died out centuries ago (there were three of those so far), and he could recite the old tomes, and many in modern tongues as well, from memory. Of course, being able to recite Jashinist chants wasn't very impressive to most people, but most people hadn't tried to learn them by heart.

(Let's see _them_ try to do better. Let's see _them_ memorize hour-long psalms for a god almost no one believed in anymore.)

And of course, there were _things_ that he'd learned from the old texts. Special seals that didn't exist elsewhere, seals that were utterly useless outside of small, specialized situations.

Situations like the existence of an Irrationality Locus.

Deidara had absolutely no problem with using her own blood to draw the seals on Sasuke when Hidan directed her to. Even when Sasuke had balked at Hidan's order to strip down to his boxers, Deidara had just been as unforgiving as she could be and threatened to use her _personal_ form of punishment. Sasuke hadn't been very concerned with that until the disembodied head started laughing, and then he decided that it didn't really matter, and that he'd just go along with it until things got to the level of uncomfortable that Orochimaru had seemed to enjoy causing.

(Of course, Orochimaru had only ever been interested in the practical, jutsu related applications of Sasuke's body and eyes… but the creepy had still been there. Only, instead of being ephebophilia, as so many had assumed, it was really just Orochimaru's form of punishment. Do badly learning a new technique? He'd put his arms around your shoulders and reassure you that you'd do better and come _far_ too close to your face. Fail to complete a mission? Hugs. Lash out against a superior? Time for therapy!)

(Orochimaru was actually surprisingly good at therapy.)

(But he was just so naturally creepy that it messed with people's heads.)

The seals were slick and _burned_ after the chakra was added, but he'd endured worse. He handled it without complaint, and glared at Deidara after it was done as he put his clothing back on, ignoring the very much red-faced Karin.

"The seals' effects should be noticeable by tomorrow." Hidan explained, squinting at the air around Sasuke, in a way that made the Uchiha wonder if that was how he looked when he stared at chakra with his Sharingan activated: like he was staring off into space and possibly hallucinating.

"And those effects would be…?" Suigetsu made some motions for Hidan to elaborate.

"Shut the f*** up, kid." Hidan fixed Suigetsu with a withering glare. "Seriously, you just keep p***ing me off."

Deidara snapped her fingers. "That reminds me, un! I still have to punish you for dropping that pasty kid from a tree!"

Suigetsu swore under his breath. He'd been hoping she'd forgotten about that.

"Don't worry, un!" Deidara chirped, far happier than he'd seen her yet, and the laughter of the creepy head was like background music to her words. Her hands flashed through hand signs as she slowly walked closer and closer to him. Suigetsu leaned back, not quite willing to run away, but not very keen on the idea of staying within range either. "This won't hurt!"

Then, faster than Suigetsu could dodge, her palms were moving forward, slamming into his chest hard enough to disturb his balance… and his solidity.

Suigetsu fell backwards, already dispersing and preparing to reform. But when he did, he felt… strange. There was a weight on his chest that hadn't been there before, and something was… missing…

_She_ gulped and looked down at _her_ chest.

Suigetsu's high-pitched scream of terror rang through the forest that day.

Hidan's laughter was quickly joined by Karin's.

o.o.o.o.o

"I see you got him back."

Deidara looked up. Once again on watch, she was the only one awake, and thus the only one to hear him.

"Come out, un." Deidara sighed. "Talking to you when you hide in a tree is weird. I've told you that before, un."

"Tch." Obito chuckled as he dropped out of the tree. "That little message we got about your fight caused quite the stir."

"I didn't see you or Zetsu showing up out of the blue to help, un." Deidara shot back.

Obito shrugged. "You were done before Pein thought you would need aid. So we didn't come."

Deidara rolled her eyes. "Right. Any other news?"

"Konan's worried sick about you, though it might just be nausea from the pregnancy." Obito tilted his head in Deidara's direction, presumably hoping to coax out a smile from the teen. "And Sasori's b****y as h*** without you there. I think he's worried about you as well, just not showing it in the same way."

"And you?"

"I'm here, aren't I?" Obito's tone was sardonic. He sighed and reached into his coat. "Actually, I'm here to give you something from Zetsu."

Deidara's hand shot up, catching the bottle of pills as it came towards her head. "A refill?"

"Yes. I know you've got that medic girl with you, but Zetsu still wants to take care of all this himself."

Deidara smiled. "That's… that's really nice of you guys. So… you want to plan out our triumphant return to Akatsuki with hostages and Itachi's little brother in tow?"

Obito shrugged, but the angle of his head indicated that he was grinning, if only slightly, to agree. "But of course, madame."

o.o.o.o.o

As a group, they moved slowly. There wasn't much that could be done for it, as Karin spent as much spare energy as she could each night, healing Hidan as thoroughly as was possible under the circumstances. Hidan couldn't move on his own; Karin needed to conserve energy; the hostages were… _uncooperative_ at the best of times… they just couldn't move very quickly.

(Except for that girl with the buns. She seemed very eager to please Deidara, particularly after what happened to Suigetsu… and after the collars and anti-suicide seals were explained… well, she had strong self-preservation skills, anyway. What was her name again…?)

(At least Juugo was willing to carry anyone when it was necessary.)

(And Suigetsu stopped trying to purposely cause trouble after the first punishment… didn't stop him from arguing with Karin, but he no longer picked fights just for the sake of it.)

o.o.o.o.o

We interrupt for these messages!

Neji stared at "her" chest in horror.

The deep voice from Deidara carried the sound of a grin. "And that's what you get for being a disrespectful little a**, un."

TenTen was torn between laughter (it was Neji, after all) and horror (it was _Neji_, after all).

Then she thought about what this situation would be like if she had Lee there with her instead of Neji, and her brain promptly died.

Sai just poked at her own new breasts in mild confusion and an underwhelming lack of outrage.

And now we allow you to return to your regularly scheduled programming!

o.o.o.o.o

It was a relief, when Karin finally finished healing up the last few ligaments that tied Hidan's left leg to his hip, and declared him fit for travel… albeit warning him to take it easy.

"Right…" Hidan stretched, annoyed at how stiff his joints were, and started walking around the camp, getting back into the hang of being able to move on his own. "Well, at least I'm up and about…"

Then he turned around as he passed by Shikamaru and punched him in the face.

What?

You all knew it was coming.

Shika's getting off easy.

"Hey, Dei?"

"Yeah?"

"Why didn't you ever turn _him_ into a girl?"

"I figured that seeing how horrible his judgment and his mistake in burying you would rack up enough guilt to outweigh anything I could come up with, un." Deidara shrugged, and then there was a short, pregnant silence as the two Akatsuki men stared at each other. "…Do you want me to, un?"

Hidan grinned, and it unnerved Shikamaru, who was already down on the ground and clutching his nose. "I've got a better idea."

Deidara snorted and walked over, letting Hidan whisper into his ear. Of course, Deidara's grin only served to unnerve poor Shikamaru further.

Fifteen seconds after that, he was a girl.

Another ten seconds after that, she was sporting cat ears and a tail.

Deidara smiled at him, far too cheerful. "Aw, you look so cute like that!"

Shikamaru was simply frozen in horror.

TenTen stifled a giggle.

And then the situation was made only further humiliating as Sai came over and started playing with the new 'appendages.'

o.o.o.o.o

"We're staying in a hotel tonight, un." Deidara's announcement was a surprising one. They'd always camped out up until now, so the news that they would actually be staying in a town…

"Why?" Neji was suspicious, of course. He had the right to be, given his situation.

Shikamaru just stayed at the edge of the circle, arms around _her_ knees, as Sai continued to pet her head in what seemed to be unlimited fascination with the cat ears.

Or he just found her cute, in the same way one would find a small child or baby animal cute.

"Well, Hidan can move now, and he's back to full health. The last time he and I saw each other in such a manner was over two months ago. Think on that for a second."

A pregnant pause filled the conversation, and then TenTen let out a small squeak as her face colored red. With that, everyone else realized _exactly_ what it was that Deidara was saying.

Though only Sai was actually blunt enough to say that Deidara and Hidan were planning on having a long night of sex out loud…

o.o.o.o.o

During the lunch break, two or three hours before they reached the village, Hidan found himself being pulled to the side by Suigetsu.

"Okay, what the h*** do you want?" Hidan crossed his arms.

Suigetsu looked uncomfortable for a few seconds, and then sighed. "Right… listen, did you lose anything in that hole?"

"I lost a lot of things. Why?" Hidan's eyes were narrowed.

"Was there a small box included?" Suigetsu knew to be nervous of this man. It was far easier for Hidan to kill him than for most people.

"How do you know about that?" Hidan demanded, whispering. The only reason he didn't slam Suigetsu up against a tree to ask this question was because it would attract too much attention.

"I found one." Suigetsu nodded to himself. "Describe it and what's inside so that I know it's the same thing, and then I'll give it to you if you promise to keep Deidara from 'punishing' me again."

"Small, blue velvet. Inside is a ring, white gold, with a sapphire and several small diamonds. There's gold filigree on the inside of the box."

Suigetsu nodded and pulled out the small box he'd found, and held it out. Hidan snatched it quickly, opening it and nearly collapsing in relief as he found that the ring was still there. Marquise cut sapphire, unblemished white gold band, all the tiny diamonds… it was all there, and all still in perfect condition.

"So… is that what I think it is?" Suigetsu asked a little cautiously. "I mean, it's really fancy, so… and you and Deidara seem really close, especially since he went through all that trouble to get you back, so…"

Hidan nodded. "Yeah."

"Were you planning on asking him after you got back from whatever mission got you stuck down there in that hole?"

Hidan nodded. "Yeah. Had a huge argument with my missions' partner over the money I needed for it too, since he's such a stingy old b******. He calmed down a little after I explained _why_ I needed the money, but he was still an old grouch about the whole thing."

Suigetsu nodded. "You're still planning on proposing, right?"

Hidan stared at him incredulously. "Well, f*** yeah, of course I am."

Suigetsu kept nodding, and he knew he was about to say something really stupid, but couldn't really stop himself. "Maybe you should ask Karin to help you plan."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Well… at least this chapter makes up for a few things last week, right? And it clears up a few mysteries… like the box that Suigetsu found, and why Hidan and Kakuzu had been arguing over money before they left, and what Deidara's idea of a punishment is (except on Sai, who's just confused).**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	39. Meet Me at the Fighting Bull

"_Do you like goats?"  
"In your last life, were you or were you not a goat?"  
*Beat*  
"Meh-eh-eh-eh-eh." *that was a bleating noise*_

_- Apparently, one of my classmates looks like Mr. Tumnus, but with straighter hair. So we supposedly have free reign to tease him about goats._

o.o.o.o.o

"Hey, could I get three rooms, un?" Deidara leaned across the counter, currently female, and smiled sweetly at the very male, very adolescent receptionist.

"Y-yes ma'am." He gulped. "What kind?"

"Two rooms big enough to fit four people, but I don't really care how many beds are in them, un. One room with a double bed. All three next to each other, if possible, un."

The boy nodded and ducked down to look at the board of keys. He came back up after several seconds. "The red key is for the double, and the blue ones are for the others. There's two beds in the other rooms, both of them doubles."

Deidara nodded and took the keys. "One night for all these would be…?"

"Two thousand, seven hundred ryo." The boy spoke nervously, but Deidara only sighed and forked over the cash. She'd have to catch a bounty later, to appease Kakuzu, if nothing else. (1)

Deidara turned around to her little entourage. "All right, kids, listen up, un!"

She was three or four years older than most of them, other than Juugo (who didn't care), and Hidan (who was standing next to her, rather than behind); she could get away with calling them kids.

"Room 217 is going to be Suigetsu, Karin, Neji, and TenTen, un. Room 218 is going to be Sasuke, Juugo, Shikamaru, and Sai. Hidan and I are going to be in Room 219, and before you complain, you _know_ what we'll be doing there tonight, un, and you don't want to be there when we are. Any questions, un?"

"Why do I have to room with him/her?!" Karin and Suigetsu's complaints were nearly synchronized, almost immediate, and very loud. They were also pointing at one another in identical manners.

Deidara put a hand to the side of her head, massaging her temple. "Okay, let me make this simple. I don't want a room with only the Konoha group, un. I don't want a room where the Konoha members outnumber the Taka ones. So we need two of Taka and two of Konoha in each room, un. And I don't want to put Juugo in a room unless Sasuke's there with him, since Sasuke is the only one that can calm him down, un. Are we clear?"

The two seethed, but accepted it. Deidara tossed them the keys. "Now, at risk of sounding like a nagging old mother, go to your rooms, un."

Deidara watched them leave, and a slow smirk grew on her face as she felt Hidan's hand sneak around her waist. "So…"

"So…"

Deidara grinned and dashed off to the room. Time to have some _fun._

o.o.o.o.o

Neji frowned as he walked down the hall. It was nearly nine o'clock, which was… strange. In Konoha, he was usually up by five in the morning (a mixed result of being a Hyuuga and of being a student of Maito Gai), and here Deidara generally had them up by six and on the move by seven, at the latest.

He stood at the door and raised a fist, knocking sharply.

Several minutes, later, Deidara opened the door, tired and rubbing a fist against her eye to get the sleep out. She stared down at him blearily. "Whaddaya want, un, white eyes?"

Neji didn't answer… or move.

Deidara looked down, and then realized that the only thing covering her was the pale bedsheet she was clutching to the chest. She waved a free hand in front of his face, and then shrugged when he didn't react.

She closed the door and went back to bed with Hidan.

Out in the hall, TenTen approached her… teammate. She waved a hand in front of his face. "Neji~?"

o.o.o.o.o

"Amaterasu."

Hidan looked up and raised an eyebrow at Sasuke. "What?"

"You mentioned Amaterasu when you were praying earlier. That's the name of one of my brother's attacks, the black fire derived from the Mangekyo Sharingan."

Hidan rolled his eyes. "And where did you think that name came from?"

Sasuke blinked. "What?"

"Amaterasu is the name of Jashin-sama's secretary."

"…What."

Hidan looked up and grinned. "Ready for a little lesson in theology?"

"Wait, _what?_"

"Too late!"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara sat down next to Hidan, almost uncomfortably close, though that wasn't really possible for these two.

"Hidan, un?"

"Hm?"

"Why _were_ you talking to Amaterasu?"

Hidan sighed and leaned forward to put his head in his hands. "It's… complicated."

"I can handle complicated, un."

Hidan sent her a look, almost lost. "He's not awake, Dei."

"Who?"

"Jashin-sama. He's… he's not… Dei, when I got buried, I stopped sending souls across that barrier. I stopped provided the energy the demon realm needed for the dimension to survive. And even though the Irrationality Locus has been created, why do you think the world hasn't collapsed yet?"

Deidara bit her lip, shrugging. "I don't really know. You never really got into the details about an exact timeframe for it."

Hidan drooped. "It should have collapsed by now, but it hasn't, because the energy's been coming from somewhere else." He looked up at Deidara. "Jashin-sama's in a self-induced coma at the moment, and he's personally providing all the energy the demon realm needs to keep going."

Deidara's heart dropped at the utterly lost expression on Hidan's face. "And that's a bad thing, un."

"It's a f***ing _terrible_ thing."

o.o.o.o.o

"Three hundred feet?" Deidara looked down at the paper that Hidan was showing her. She frowned, biting her lip after a second. "So, two feet wide, you said, un? 299 to 301?"

"Yeah."

"The triangle?"

"The points aren't exactly specific, so as long as their hitting the edges…"

"I'll overestimate a little, then, un." Deidara stared at the page again. "The circle is simple." She began writing on the paper, speaking aloud to Hidan. "((301/2)^2)π – ((299/2)^2)π, that's all, un. The triangle will be a little trickier, but that shouldn't be difficult. Just… the radius is the hypotenuse of the six right triangles that we can split it into, un, right? And since it's an equilateral, we just need to use 30-60-90 rules and use 150, so… 6(150 x 3sqrt(2)), which is just 450(sqrt(3)), un." (2)

She sat back with a grin. "Now we just multiply the perimeter of the triangle by two, to estimate the area since I don't feel like doing the same thing I did for the circle with the areas, un, and add it to the area we got for the circle perimeter, and then figure out how much we need based off of that… should we assume that it's about the same coverage as paint, un?"

Hidan shrugged. "Maybe. But if we're painting this on the ground, then it might get soaked up…"

"Well, paint's probably thicker anyway, un, so we'll assume that we can cover more if we just use paint as a base viscosity. Though you're right about it soaking up, so we should probably try to do this on a giant slab of sandstone or something. I think there might be some near Iwa…"

"O…kay?" Hidan shrugged when Deidara shot him a look. "Hey, you're the math whiz, not me."

Deidara rolled her eyes. "It's basic geometry, though, even you should get this, un."

Hidan rolled his eyes back, and, mockingly, said "They're only hieroglyphs, even you should get them."

Deidara chuckled. "Alright, alright, I get it. Still…" She turned back to the numbers. "We're going to need a lot of blood to paint that big of a Jashinist symbol, un."

Hidan shrugged. "Some of it can come from me, but I don't know where we'd get the rest, un. We could rob a blood bank, but that might not be a good idea with the hostages anywhere nearby, un."

He noticed Deidara drooping, and put a hand on her shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"I know where we can get the blood, un." She sighed. "I need to use a phone the next time we get to a civilized area, un."

Hidan stared at her in concern. "And this is bad because…?"

Deidara shook her head. "You'll see when we get there, un."

"Alright…"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara leaned against the phone pole, one arm folded against her chest, and her face was set into a cold and angry glare, though she only looked at the ground. She held the phone up to her ear, and one could almost see the storm clouds forming above her head.

Hidan had a very good idea of what was going on now, and he wasn't happy about it at all.

A voice came on the other end, and Deidara kept her voice tightly controlled, vocal tic missing completely, as she spoke. "Hello, this is Deidara. You may remember me from several years ago. Could you just put me through?"

There was silence for several minutes, and then another voice, a male one, came onto the end of the other line.

"Yeah, this is Deidara, un." Her voice was no longer controlled as it had been, but harsher, ruder, and clearly disgusted.

Silence for several seconds, and then a question, in a voice that was surprisingly wary, made its way across the line.

"Meet up with me sometime soon, un. I need some materials for work soon, and unfortunately, you're the quickest way to get to them, un."

The voice babbled on the other end, and Deidara rolled her eyes.

"I'm not going to kill you, a**hat. Consider this a favor to make up for what happened the last time we saw each other, un."

More male babbling.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, un. Don't care. Just meet up with me at The Fighting Bull in a week, un, and get the private room. I'll be bringing a few _friends_ along, so don't try anything, un." She was silent for several more seconds, and then ground out, quite quietly, "I'm willing to put up with you for this, un. Don't push your luck, Mamoru."

o.o.o.o.o

(1) 2700 ryo is approximately 270 dollars. My parents have a tendency to go for really cheap hotels, so I have no idea how much a room should actually cost. I was estimating at a hundred dollars each for the big rooms and seventy for Dei and Hidan's.

(2) I edited this a lot, because FFnet had a lot of trouble showing my original notation, the exponents and square roots in particular. (sqrt(x)) is the square root of x. Sorry for any earlier confusion.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Remember how I mentioned, way back when, that Mamoru would be making a comeback, and that my only hint was blood bags?**

**Yeah. That's why.**

**Also, this is an anniversary week. As of May 8, Gender Confusion will have been going on for a year. So this week, I'm giving you, not one, not two, chapters… I'm giving you guys a new chapter every day.**

**And you are going to LOVE them.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	40. Bull-Headed

"_I don't have to be good at sarcasm, [Name]. I have __**charisma**__."  
- The usual guy. I'm pretty sure it's the other way around, though._

"_[Name]! You traitor!"  
"No, I'm a refugee; I __escaped__."  
- This wasn't done during History. This was when a friend that dropped IB visited my SL Psych class. I called him a traitor. You can see his response._

o.o.o.o.o

"I'm still not happy about this." Hidan said, not for the first time.

Deidara lifted her arms, letting her clay clone finish adjusting her kimono. "I know, un. You've told me enough times."

Hidan came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, careful not to disturb her clothing, nor disturb his own. "I just don't feel comfortable letting you go and see him again after the s*** he pulled."

Deidara turned around, burying her, as of yet unpainted, face into Hidan's shoulder. "I know, but you'll be there with me, un, and you _know_ I can take care of myself, remember?"

"Well, _yeah_, but… f***, I just don't like it, okay?"

Deidara rolled her eyes and tightened her hug. "Neither do I, but it's the quickest and easiest way to get this over with, un."

Hidan sighed and stepped back, looking Deidara in the eyes. "You sure?"

"I'm _fine,_ Hidan." Deidara turned and stepped out into the hall. "And you won't be the only one there with me, either."

Hidan crossed his arms and grumbled. "I still don't see why you're bringing them along."

Deidara shrugged, heading to the bathroom to start putting on the makeup, not quite willing to go far enough to put on actual face paint. "Bringing Karin and Suigetsu along is a sign of trust to Taka, so that they'll trust us back more, un. Plus, those two need a chance to show that they can control themselves in situations like this, un."

"And Konoha?" Hidan followed her in, holding objects as he was instructed while Deidara started.

"Gossip. By bringing along the Hyuuga and Little Miss Sharp-and-Point-Objects, we'll let the other guards see them, un, and then it'll enter the grapevines and likely reach at least one of Konoha's spymasters. If Konoha knows that they're alive, un, but under my control… well, it'll change things. They'll know that I'm not happy with Konoha, un, but will also stay under the impression that there's a level of innocence to me that keeps them in pity more, un." Deidara shrugged. "It'll give them a bit of a pinpoint on our location, but it'll also let me mess with their heads enough to make them keep hesitating in killing me, un."

"Right. And you aren't scared that they'll try to pull something while they're there?" Hidan asked, watching Deidara finish putting on the last touches and move to doing her hair.

Deidara snorted. "Pull what? They can't run away, and almost any information they give out works in our favor, un. If they mention our plans, they'd have to mention why we're doing them, first, and you _know_ that that'll be a good thing for us and a _guilty_ one for Konoha, un."

She turned and smirked at Hidan. "Trust me on this. I know what I'm doing, un."

Hidan just shook his head and followed her out the door.

o.o.o.o.o

Confusion wasn't a good thing, in Neji's opinion, unless it was happening to the enemy.

Unfortunately, the enemy was in a bad mood and doing things that left _Neji_ confused, which was… undesirable.

TenTen seemed to be going along with everything that Deidara suggested, and quite happily at that, but Neji knew better, and he was sure that most of the others realized it as well. TenTen was the only Konoha shinobi to avoid being 'punished' so far, though Neji doubted that Sai actually registered the effects in a negative way… or at all, really.

At least Neji felt comfortable in this clothing, unlike the rest of the party, most of whom picked at the stiff, heavy silk that restricted their movements and made them look formal. Only Deidara seemed comfortable in this clothing, Neji noted, and even she didn't move in it the way that a Hyuuga, most of whom had been raised in austerity and tradition, could carry themselves in such formal clothing.

Inwardly, he smirked at this.

Outwardly, he frowned at the fact that he had to go along with Deidara's… delusions.

He was _not_ being petty.

He kept his frown up as they approached the large building, which straddled the line between traditional and modern. The guards apparently recognized Deidara, but seemed unsure as to whether to greet her coldly or with a smile. They'd obviously dealt with one another before, but Neji could tell by the twitches on their faces that Deidara's very presence was confusing them. She obviously hadn't visited for a while, but…

Given the way she walked past them without a glance, Deidara wasn't very interested in catching up.

Neji ignored the smug smirk that Hidan sent towards the guards, focusing instead on making sure he was ready to catch TenTen if she tripped or something. Graceful in battle she may have been, but the girl had never been in this formal of a kimono before. Maybe a few for festivals, but for a kimono with this many pieces, this length, this much restriction… no, Neji felt no problem in staying just behind TenTen, ready to help her if necessary.

The fact that he had a wonderful view of her rear _totally _had nothing to do with it.

No, really. With that much fabric everywhere, there wasn't anything to see.

Trololololololololololololo—

o.o.o.o.o

The air was… tense.

"You rented the entire restaurant out, un?"

"If I'm dealing with you… I'm not taking any chances."

"Hmph." Deidara got a self-satisfied smirk, though there was an icy edge to it, and she was patronizing when she spoke. "Still scared of me, un? How… _cute_."

The man across the table didn't let his frown waver, though the shinobi notices slight changes, near undetectable, that showed how he felt about the situation.

"I'm assuming you're not here just to make puerile jabs at me, _Dei-chan_."

"Don't f*** with me, Mamoru." Deidara smiled sweetly, a hand coming down to rest on Hidan's knee and keep him from attacking the man across the table.

"What is it that you need?" Mamoru placed his elbows on the table, and placed his fingertips together as he stared across the table.

Mamoru was a slim man, and while he did not have the musculature of a shinobi, he was not as soft as most civilians. His face was clean-shaven and smooth, and would have spoken of a rather cushy life style were it not for the scar that reached from just below his left eye to down at the right side of his jaw. His eyes were sharp and slim, with disproportionally wide pupils set into large, light brown irises. His clothing was typical of a noble's, but with some added embroidery that only someone associated with the underground would recognize as the mark of a high-ranking Yakuza.

Deidara smirked at him. "I need blood, un."

Mamoru's eyes narrowed. "I take it you don't mean that in the sense of needing to have someone killed."

"Of course not. I could do that easily enough myself, un." Deidara waved him off flippantly. "No, I need literal blood, and you're my quickest way to access a blood bank. Get me the amount I need, and I'll be out of your hair for good, un."

Mamoru seemed pensive. "How much do you need?"

Deidara's answer made him glare suspiciously. "Do I even want to know why you need this?"

"We're summoning a god, un."

"I'll take that as a no." Mamoru didn't believe them… pity. "This much… It may take several days."

"Just get it done, un." Deidara leaned forward. "Get us the blood, and I won't pull any of the s*** that you thought I would, deal, un?"

Mamoru stared at her. "You still haven't given me all the details. Are there certain kinds of blood that you need? You're still skimping on the details, little canary." The end was mocking, as though it was an inside joke that only he and Deidara knew, and he wasn't intending on sharing. He put a hand on the table, pushing the paper back across the table to her.

Deidara's fists clenched, and a kunai seemed to appear from nowhere as she slammed it into the table between them, just between Mamoru's middle and ring fingers. "Don't f*** with me, Mamoru. I'm _really_ not in the mood, un."

The two glared at one another, lightning almost sparking between them. There was two slight scrapes of metal, and they became aware of the fact that Hidan and Suigetsu had both drawn their weapons.

"Stand down, boys." Deidara ordered the two, just as Mamoru's guards began to react, even if it was far too late to stop anything.

Deidara wondered for a moment at the fact that Suigetsu had gone along with Hidan in the protective motion, but then brushed it off. He was probably just trying not to get turned into a girl again.

Smart move.

Mamoru stared at Deidara distastefully. "And you wonder why I considered you a dangerous choice."

"Tch." Deidara yanked the knife back out of the table and leaned back to continue glaring at Mamoru. "Just tell me if we have a deal or not, un."

"Is there a specific kind that you need?" _Just so that I don't have to deal with you being p***y if I get the wrong kind._

"B would work best." Hidan interjected. The closer the blood matched to his own, the easier it would be.

"You allow him to speak for you?" Mamoru asked Deidara slyly.

"Listen, dips***, _do we have a deal or not?_"

Mamoru stared at Deidara and then, ever so slowly, nodded. "We have a deal."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Mamoru's not exactly pretty, but he's not ugly either. He's a kind of rugged handsome that's hard to describe.**

**How do you all feel about him? A demeaning son of a b**** or a somewhat sympathetic guy?**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	41. Fill Me Up With Non-Filler

"_The only good commie is a—!"  
*mumble*mumble*mumble*  
"You see, if you'd been in school in the 1950s, you would have been suspended for that!"  
"We also would have been suspended because we're all good at math and homosexuals. Because that was a big thing back then."_

_- My teacher. My class. My teacher. The usual guy._

o.o.o.o.o

"An entire week?" Sasuke demanded, a dangerous glint in his eye.

Hidan smacked the back of his head. "Yes. An entire week. Shut up and deal with it."

"How long until—"

"Don't push it, un." Deidara glared at the Uchiha. "I'm not happy about having to be here either, but we don't have a choice. We're staying here until we can get what we need, and then it's full speed back to the base, un."

"You can't just—"

"Shut _up_, Uchiha!" Deidara snapped at him. "None of us are happy about this, and none of us can do anything about it, un! This is going to affect you too, and if we don't do this, s*** will go down that _no one_ wants to see going down, un!"

Sasuke stared at her mutinously. He didn't speak, but…

Deidara made her decision. "You know what? Screw it. You've p***ed me off enough to make me do this."

Sasuke realized what was about to happen, and prepared to get out of the way.

Unfortunately… while Sasuke could battle a single S-rank for a short while, if with difficulty, he couldn't quite take on two.

And Hidan very much approved of what Deidara was about to do.

As a result, Sasuke lost something special, and gained several _other_ something specials in exchange. Two on the chest, and a few below the belt.

Deidara ignored the dismayed shout from Karin behind her. "You f*** with me, I f*** you up, un. Simple as that, Uchiha, and you seemed to forget, un."

"Change me back." Sasuke cringed at how high her… no, no, _his_ voice was. He was a guy, d***it!.

"Not at the moment, you're not." Deidara smirked as Sasuke's head snapped up to stare at her, wondering at how the mind-reading had occurred.

"How did you—?"

"Be a good girl, and I might just tell you." Deidara smirked. "Have fun as you are, _sweetheart._"

She strutted off, Hidan following behind with his hands tucked into his pockets, whistling a merry tune.

"…Hey, Sasuke-chan—"

"Not a f***ing word, Hozuki."

Oh, using surnames, are we Sasuke-chan? Must be serious…

Then again, you can't hear me, so I can't annoy you the way I annoy Sasori…

Yet.

o.o.o.o.o

"—after what she did to Sasuke-kun!"

Hidan watched Karin with glazed, half-closed eyes, the very picture of patient boredom.

"You done yet?"

Karin bristled in anger, preparing to retort hotly.

"You _do_ realize," Suigetsu spoke before she started, "That the better mood that Deidara is in, the sooner Sasuke will be back to normal, right?"

Karin glared at Suigetsu, unwilling to admit that he was right.

"So, are you going to get involved in this or not? Because I was just planning on taking Dei to a nice restaurant and proposing then, but if you think you've got a better plan…"

Karin rolled her eyes. "At least you know to go with something classic and basic. Have you at least decided on the details? Which restaurant? What you'll wear? What kind of dinner you'll get? Flowers? Music? The… night after?"

Hidan stared at her. "I don't think Deidara's going to care about most of that. H***, I _know_ she won't care about flowers or what we wear."

"No, you don't. I can see Deidara not caring about flowers, but clothing? With the things she designs? Nuh-uh, she'll care. Even if it's only a little, she'll care. And while I don't doubt that she'd scoff at a super-expensive dinner, something at least moderately nice and somewhat private should be the least you could do."

"But—"

"You don't get it, do you? This is a proposal. All those things might not matter most of the time, but this is going to be one of those nights that she'll want to remember forever, so you want it to be _perfect_. If she wants to remember this forever, she wants to remember something nice."

Hidan stared at her, incredulous. "You're serious about this."

"Dead serious. Now let's start planning while Deidara's still messing with that Nara chit's head."

Suigetsu laughed slightly at that.

o.o.o.o.o

Shikamaru didn't _hate_ being a girl…ish.

Women were troublesome, and after Tora, cats were troublesome as well.

Becoming a catgirl was just… ugh. The ears got in the way, and he, she, whatever, 'he' just kept _sitting_ on it (no, no, _she_; Shika-chan may think herself masculine, but it'll amuse me to use she). And after she'd been in the form for a few weeks… well, at least he understood why being more troublesome than usual for a few days a month was _totally_ justified for women. That just… all the blood… and then Deidara, Hidan, Suigetsu, _and_ Karin making snide comments at her…

Well, it wasn't very _fun_. Maybe if she'd been stuck like this for some other reason, she wouldn't have minded as much, but it was because of some nukenin that he had to stay with for an extended period of time anyway, so… At least she wasn't the only one suffering most of the time. Neji and Sai managed to irritate Deidara fairly often, though Sai rarely understood exactly what he'd done wrong, either before, during, or after 'girlification.' Suigetsu just seemed to enjoy irritating Deidara, even if he didn't like the punishment, and Sasuke had recently pushed his arrogance just a little too far.

Neither of the _real _girls had been punished, though, not yet. TenTen was careful to not give Deidara a reason to grow irritated, and Karin had been the one to heal Hidan, and managed to guilt trip and blackmail Deidara into keeping her normal.

Neji was always irritable, but it was worse when he was turned into a girl (completely understandable). He was, well, b****y. Really b****y. He was already told quite frequently that he looked rather feminine, but it was worse like this. TenTen wasn't happy about it either, but given her glances towards Neji's, um, nether regions… well… let's not go there…

Sai, though… Sai was mostly confused about becoming a girl on occasion, and didn't really seem to care, if his reactions to being changed were anything to go by. He only complained about the monthly thing, when it happened, because it apparently made training difficult.

Speaking of Sai, he was strangely obsessed with Shikamaru's new ears. Male or female, Sai would just sit behind Shikamaru and play with her ears, sometimes for over half an hour. The embarrassing part, or more embarrassing, anyway, was that Shikamaru found herself extremely susceptible to purring when Sai started fiddling with the right part of her head or ears, and occasionally, just maybe, might have, um, fallenasleepinSai'slapafewtimes.

…You know, maybe.

Once or twice.

(It happened at least daily.)

Sai just seemed to find Shikamaru to be extremely cute.

Really, really cute.

…Shikamaru really hoped that Sai wasn't developing a crush on 'her.'

Because that would be really awkward.

Hopefully it was just teddy bear cute, not attractive girl cute.

CUTE.

o.o.o.o.o

Juugo, for all his trouble, was actually the most well-behaved of Deidara's minions/hostages group, tied with TenTen. But while TenTen was partially a good girl to deal with her well-developed sense of self-preservation, Juugo was just a good guy naturally.

Especially given how much he liked animals.

(This wasn't a problem in and of itself.)

(It was a problem because he occasionally started acting like Sai when they were around Shikamaru.)

(To be fair, fem!neko!Shika was absolutely adorable.)

But the fact that only TenTen and Juugo were well-behaved enough to stay on Deidara's good side meant that they were almost forced to talk sometimes, when Deidara was lecturing the rest.

It got awkward.

Really awkward.

"So…"

Juugo looked over to TenTen. "What?"

TenTen shrugged, trying to ignore the angry shouting from Deidara behind them. He was rather p***ed at the moment, you see.

"I don't know. The silence was just getting to me."

Juugo blinked and turned back to talking to a bird.

TenTen bit her lip and went back to trying to ignore the lecturing behind her.

_THUD._

Juugo blinked and looked up. He looked for what it could have been, and eventually noticed a kunai, deeply embedded into the center of a knot on a tree, 50 meters away.

He looked over at TenTen, who was frowning at her shot. "I've been getting rusty."

Juugo looked back to the shot. "Seems pretty good to me."

"It's a centimeter and a half off. A few weeks ago, I could have gotten it on the dot, with a 3 millimeter margin of error."

Juugo blinked. He looked around for a few seconds, and then pointed to an apple on a branch, thirty five meters away. "Can you get that down with a kunai, without hitting the apple itself, but still getting the kunai stuck in the tree?"

TenTen glanced up, gauging the distance. "Want to see me get it down in a way that looks even cooler?"

"Uh… sure?" Juugo sounded more like he was asking a question, but it was enough for TenTen.

_Swish._

_Thunk._

"I know that I'm not actually supposed to use a Kusarigama like that, but it works for me." She shrugged, holding the weapon that was essentially a blade on a string. "Of course, Hidan-san uses his scythe the same way, but even he admits that that's not really a precision weapon."

Juugo glanced over at the apple on the ground, to which a chipmunk had already scurried over. "Yet you use it like it's supposed to be for situations that are that specific."

TenTen smirked, an expression she hadn't worn in a while. "I'm a weapons expert for a reason, buddy. You give me anything with a blade, anything that's sharp, shiny, and pointy… and I can have it down to the point where I'm catching jugulars in an hour."

Juugo looked back over to the first hit again, the kunai in the tree. "You said that was rusty for you?"

TenTen frowned again. "Well… yes. I'm not really happy with it. I haven't had much of a chance to practice recently, so it's understandable, but I'm still not very happy with it."

Juugo looked slightly uncomfortable. "I could try pointing out a target, and you try to hit it?"

"…Sure."

And thus a strange friendship was born.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Eh… it's a little filler-y, isn't it?**

**I'm thinking of holding another contest on DA, about "strange relationship" I've written. Like this one… or the Obito/Deidara friendship that just makes you wonder what's going on, or the Sai-Shika mess, or the strange mini-family of Dei, Sasori, and Ginny in RaH, or whatever the h*** is going on with Kakashi and Robin in Fly Free (I have no idea what they are), or even the strange, tsundere friendship/"romance" going on between Menma and Karin on DA. What do you think?**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	42. Let's Just Go Already

"_Therefore __Bambi__ is a __communist__!"  
- My teacher._

"_There was a lady that held the seat, and she liked to wear a lot of pink. Then Richard Nixon pointed at her and said: You see, she's a communist, but not a real communist, she's like a __**soft**__ communist. She's a pinko."  
- My history teacher. See, history CAN be fun!_

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I'd hoped this would happen. You'll see what I mean at the end.**

o.o.o.o.o

"And you'll never deal with me again?"

Deidara snorted, looking over the blood bags, and didn't bother even glancing at Mamoru. "Not even if the world was ending, you little s***, un."

"How eloquent."

"You're a b******."

"Not helping your case."

"Just f*** off, okay, un?"

"Hm… how about—"

"I will punch you if you finish that sentence, un."

"…"

"Good."

Deidara glanced over the blood bags, noting how much of it actually fit the request for primarily type B blood. Well, Mamoru could uphold a deal, even if he couldn't really hold a relationship. "This'll work. So no, you won't be seeing me again."

She turned around and whistled. "Oi, bun-head girl! You're good at sealing, right, un? Come over here and get this loaded up into a scroll so that we can go, un."

TenTen wouldn't mess with the blood. Shika-chan had been listening in on Hidan's 'theology lesson' to Sasuke, and had in turn explained it to the rest of the hostages, if only to get a different opinion on it.

Deidara knew this.

And she would very much take advantage of it.

Like making TenTen work for her.

Of course, TenTen was already prone to doing what Deidara asked her to do, if only to preserve her own life… and sex. Seeing the boys get changed may have been amusing, but she definitely didn't want to be a male.

That was just… no.

Plus, as a girl, she was given free rein to do things like coo over how cute Shikamaru was as a catgirl. Sure, it was a little disturbing that Sai basically did the same thing in his own way, but… it was Shikamaru as a neko! A female neko! And that was just indescribably adorable.

Ahem.

In any case…

Deidara blinked as the basic overview of TenTen's recent thoughts rolled over her, and then sent a brief glare at the sky for… being… distracting…

Oh, come on! Now you, too? At least it's _fun_ to irritate Sasori! Irritating you is like… like poking a poodle!

Deidara didn't look impressed, but turned back to watch TenTen seal away the last of the blood.

Fine. Ignore me, then.

See if I care.

Deidara sighed and went back to managing things.

Hidan snickered in the background.

o.o.o.o.o

Hey, Sasori.

He stiffened on his chair. "I thought you were supposed to be gone."

I got bored and decided that it's _really_ been _far _too long since we last saw each other.

"So you thought that the best option would be to come and bother me."

Well… yeah. Pretty much. It's been a while since I've bugged you, and we're kind of in a lull in the storyline.

"A… lull. Just what is going on?" Sasori craned his head back to look at the ceiling, despite knowing that he would see nothing.

We~ll… ah… _we~ll_…

"Stop stalling."

Deidara just made a deal with Mamoru!

"He _what?!"_

Bye!

o.o.o.o.o

"Whoa, this restaurant looks really nice, un." Deidara looked at the advertisement in his hands. "There's a lot of good food on the menu… bit pricey, though, un. Think we could risk having dinner there for a night? We haven't had a nice night out in a while, un…"

"I guess…" Hidan looked over the menu, noting down the prices. Deidara was right about it being a little pricey, but it wasn't _too_ bad. Bad enough to make Kakuzu angry, but not enough to give him a conniption. "I wouldn't mind going."

"Not taking the minions, though, un." Deidara laughed. "No way."

Hidan snorted, and then something prickled in the back of his mind. He glanced around the street, noting a few faces. "Hey… maybe you should go as a girl."

"Eh? Why, un?" Deidara looked up at him, confused.

"Just some of the stares we're getting… I think they might try to overcharge if you go male. People here seem a little…"

"Homophobic, un?" Deidara snorted. "Figures. Yeah, I'll go as a girl. You're probably right, un."

"Great. And," Hidan yanked Deidara's arm just enough to pull the blond into a spin. "I get to see you in a pretty dress again, huh?"

"You a**hole, that hurt!, un" Deidara shouted, but the wide grin on his face showed that he wasn't serious.

Hidan laughed and pulled Deidara into a hug.

"…You have to wear a shirt though, un."

"F***."

o.o.o.o.o

"Why are we doing this again?"

"Shut up, Suigetsu."

Karin and Suigetsu were crouched behind some bushes.

The bushes were at the top of a hill.

The hill was in the middle of a park.

There were a number of buildings at the bottom of the hill, just outside the fence for the hill.

Karin had a pair of binoculars.

And before you ask, no, she's not trying to peep on Sasuke.

And I know I have to say that, because everyone's a pervert, way deep down.

Plus, there are a _lot_ of Karin haters out there that immediately want to say that she's an evil pervert.

We're not going to have that discussion right now, though.

"What are they doing?" Suigetsu whispered, only to jump to the side seconds later to avoid Karin's irritated elbow jab.

"Shut up!" She whispered, not looking away from the binoculars.

"What are you two doing?"

Suigetsu glanced up, realized that Neji was standing in full view, and then tackled the Hyuuga to the ground.

His face landed on something soft, and he quickly scrambled off as he realized that, yes, Neji was under a punishment at the moment.

Suigetsu could _totally_ be excused for not realizing earlier, because Neji was, quite frankly, extremely effeminate anyway.

…Though he probably should have realized due to the voice. But whatever.

"If you ever do that again, I will Jyuuken your genitalia off."

Suigetsu gulped, knowing that Jyuuken was one of the few taijutsu styles that actually COULD affect him.

"Are we clear, Hozuki?"

"…Crystal."

"Good."

Why was Neji so intimidating, even like this?

That's not to say that women weren't intimidating.

Suigetsu remembered his mother, after all.

But Deidara used this technique as a punishment. People weren't meant to take it comfortably, to act as they always did while under the technique's influence. It was meant as an embarrassment, to make people feel uncomfortable in their own skin without ever hurting them at all. Just looking at Shikamaru showed how effective the transformations could be, though Shika-chan had the added problem of the nekomimi thing.

And yet Neji still managed to be as insufferable and intimidating as always.

Suigetsu tore his mind away from the subject and just grabbed Neji's shoulder, pulling her over to where Karin was still watching through binoculars.

"Neji? Where are you?"

Suigetsu held back a groan of annoyance.

"Shut up and get down!" Karin hissed back, while Neji just reached up and pulled TenTen down next to her.

"Neji? Mind telling me what's going on?"

"I am not aware."

"Just get down and keep quiet so that they don't see us."

Neji looked over at Suigetsu. She looked at Karin. She looked, in particular, at Karin's binoculars.

Neji put her hands together. "Byakugan!"

TenTen shifted uncomfortably. It wasn't like Neji was going to be seeing anything he… she hadn't seen at some point before by activating it, but it was still awkward whenever this happened. They were teammates and all, so Neji had _obviously_ been activating the Byakugan in TenTen's presence for years now, so she _should_ have been comfortable with it at this point, especially considering the fact that—

The fact that Neji was a girl as well.

(Totally had nothing to do with the fact that she may have wanted, in the back of her mind, for Neji to actually admire her a—)

(Nope. Not gonna go there.)

(Even if it's true.)

Ahem.

In any case, TenTen just got very awkward whenever Neji decided to use the Byakugan in her presence, even though there was really no point to getting so embarrassed.

"You're watching Deidara and Hidan?" Neji seemed confused. "Why would you wish to track their movements?"

"Just shut up, sit down, and watch the d*** proposal!" Karin snapped.

Suigetsu shrugged at them.

"What are you all doing here?"

"D*** it, Sai, not you too." TenTen sighed. "Just sit down before Karin gets all p***y again."

Karin flipped her the bird, not looking away from her binoculars.

"I see. And what about Shikamaru?"

"He's with you too?" TenTen glanced around Sai's form, her eyes barely making out Shikamaru's yawning figure in the dark. "Yeah, Shikamaru should sit down as well."

"Shut up, all of you!" Karin repeated her 'request' again. "Stop distracting me!"

There was silence for several seconds, and then they heard feet tramping through the bushes again. "Sasuke-sama, I'm really not sure that—"

TenTen cringed. Well, she could probably get through to them with less issues than anyone else here, barring perhaps Shikamaru, who would just glare at Juugo in a way that looked more like a pout because of how sleep she always was, and _wow_ she was easily distracted today.

"Juugo, could you two please just sit down? We don't want people to notice us."

The large boy, possibly man, obliged her and sat down, silently tugging on Sasuke's sleeve until she sat down with him.

"Close your shirt up, Uchiha." Neji sounded like she was smirking. "Your chest is spilling out again."

TenTen could almost swear that she _heard_ Sasuke blushing. "Shut up, Hyuuga."

"I believe the phrase here," Sai interrupted, "Would be that Neji is 'just telling it like it is, sweetheart.' Am I correct?"

"…Stop talking." Suigetsu voiced everyone's opinions. "Just… never try saying anything even remotely modern, ever again."

"Why?"

Shikamaru's hand clamped down over Sai's mouth, a barely-discernible expression of irritation on her face. The lashing of her tail and the position of her ears, however, showed just how irritated she was. "Don't."

"Could someone explain why we're all here?" Juugo asked, after several minutes of silence had passed, other than impatient sighs and irritated huffs from Karin and bored noises from everyone else, other than Neji, whose eyes were activated and focused whatever it was that Karin was watching… as well as reprimanding Sasuke for her clothing every few moments.

Suigetsu rolled his eyes. "Karin dragged me out here to watch Hidan propose to Deidara, and then didn't let me leave, no matter how much I p***ed her off. Then people just kept showing up. And now we're here."

"Shh!" Karin waved a hand at them, though her face showed that, as far as this time went, there was actually something fairly important happening.

They were silent, and, despite the fact that many of them didn't particularly like their 'bosses,' they were all on tenterhooks, waiting to hear what Karin was seeing.

"He's standing up." Neji told them, reminding them in the process that she could actually see what was going on. "And now he's on one knee."

After several seconds, Karin opened her mouth, ready to relate the latest development, but was cut off by a piercing, shrieking squeal that rose up from the restaurant that was at the bottom of the hill.

"…Should I assume that she has accepted his proposal."

"…Yeah…" Karin put her binoculars down slowly, looking slightly uncomfortable.

"What's wrong? I thought you were excited about this, b****?" Suigetsu poked her, only to get smacked in the face in return.

"…They, ah… they…" Neji struggled with her words, eyes already deactivated.

"They're kind of making out in the middle of the restaurant." Karin deadpanned.

Silence settled down over the area, the information being digested.

"I hope they remember to use that silencing seal when they have sex tonight. I would not wish to be kept awake by their love-making again."

"…Sai, just stop talking."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Ha. I don't think any of you were expecting me to write the proposal from this perspective. But I've been planning on it like this for a while. And Sai is… yeah…**

**How angry are you that I didn't include the full scene?**

**Oh, and about my A/N at the beginning… well, I was hoping that the proposal would be uploaded on the actual anniversary day. And it has been! So I'm happy.**

**Okay, since there are a few people that apparently didn't realize this: YES. MAMORU IS DEIDARA'S EX-BOYFRIEND FROM CHAPTER 12. He's a character that had been missing for over twenty-five chapters, and I brought him back. The trope/tool is called a Chekhov's Gunman. Yumiko was the same thing, only on a smaller scale.**

**BEFORE I FORGET (because I have every single other time for the past few weeks), go read Dysphoria, by SupernaturalCrossoverGirl. It's about a female OC reborn as (a very much male) Kakashi, and goes into many of the same themes as GC has. It's decently written, and I like the plotline (even if it hasn't changed much yet due to how early in the timeline it is). So… check it out, yeah?**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	43. Visits are Important

"_Did I ever tell you the story of how I'm the descendent of one of the women hung as a witch at the Salem witch trials? I know what [the usual guy]'s thinking: Mr. [Name]'s the __son of a witch__."  
- My History teacher_

"_Why don't you want to call people in the army Communists? Well, they're big, they carry guns, and you just __really__ don't want to call people in the army communists."  
- My History teacher_

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Remember how I mentioned SupernaturalCrossoverGirl yesterday? Well, the bell is all her fault. All hers.**

**Also, I've already got people saying they'll draw Shika-chan and Sai, which makes me wonder how their one-scene wonder of humor got to be so popular, but I'll roll with it.**

o.o.o.o.o

"Nice ring."

Deidara looked up, a smirk decorating his face. "How do you always manage to find me when we're actually camping out instead of at a hotel, un?"

Obito dropped to the ground lightly, plain black cloak dropping loosely around him. "I ask Zetsu. He asks the trees."

"The trees tell you if I'm in a hotel, un?"

"No. That was a joke." Obito tilted his head, his grin audible in the tone of his voice. "My secrets stay mine, Dei-chan."

Deidara snorted and patted the ground next to him. "Sit down, dumba**."

Obito chuckled and plopped down, leaning forward to rest his arms on his knees. "I'm sure Konan will be happy to hear the news… though I'm curious about how you're dealing with the size change of your fingers when you switch genders."

"Seals, un." Deidara shrugged. "No idea how it works."

"What do we need to plan for your return?" Obito lost his teasing demeanor, getting straight to business… but he also grabbed a stick and began scratching at the ground, swirling small, nonsensical designs through the dirt.

Deidara shrugged, glancing around. "Are you sure they won't wake up, un?"

The angle to Tobi's head indicated just how unimpressed he was by Deidara's question. His answer, of course, was a flat "Yes."

Deidara rolled his eyes. "A'right, a'right. So…"

"Itachi." Obito said after several seconds of deliberation. "We have to warn Itachi and consider telling Sasuke the truth."

Deidara raised an eyebrow. "Won't that interfere with your plans, un?"

Obito shrugged, slightly uncomfortable, and his stick jerked in the dirt. "You and Hidan have proven enough that I believe you in concerns to the dimension collapsing. I may have my plans, as well as Madara's, but there's no point to trying to make the world a better place if there's no world to fix in the first place."

Deidara stared at him for a few seconds, and then nodded slowly. "Okay… that makes sense, I guess, un."

"Now, the Uchiha brothers?"

Deidara leaned back, staring up at the starry sky through the smoke from the campfire. "We have to tell them, un. I want to tell them both everything you know, because we don't need their s*** causing us trouble while we're dealing with bigger issues, un."

"True."

"Most of them are your fault, un."

Obito's hand shot out and contacted Deidara's shoulder, bodily shoving the younger man onto his side. Deidara levered himself back up into a sitting position, glaring at Obito.

"You're an a**, un."

"And you're an effeminate schizophrenic. Now that we're done saying the obvious, can we move on?"

"D**k."

"Deidara…"

Deidara rolled his eyes and sighed. "Fine. We're telling Sasuke and Itachi everything, un. What do we do about the other minions and the hostages, un?"

Obito tapped his chin. "How well do they listen to you, and how much do they trust you now?"

Deidara thought it over. "The minions act out sometimes, but they listen to me when it's important, un. The hostages… I _think_ they've started believing me and Hidan on the Jashinism thing, but I don't know how willing they'll be to take orders from me, un."

"What orders would you be giving them?" Obito glanced over to the sleeping bodies. "And when are you going to fix the girl with the cat ears?"

"I might not. She looks adorable like that, un." Deidara chuckled, but then grew serious. "As for what orders I'd give them, un… well, one of them is an artist. A painter, specifically, that can bring his creations to life, un."

"So you'd use him for entertainment?" Obito didn't sound very convinced.

"No…" Deidara shook his head. "There's… there's a technique… or a ritual, really, un… Hidan knows how to use it, but there needs to be a huge amount of blood involved, un, and, well…"

Obito put the pieces together fairly quickly. So much blood, Hidan's involvement, a painter… "A giant symbol of Jashin?"

Deidara nodded. "We'd probably need to go near Iwa or Kumo to get near some large, flat surfaces to paint on, un, like some of the sandstone plains, but…"

Obito nodded. "That sounds like it could work, though I don't really know much about whatever it is that you two are planning. I might be missing some huge detail without knowing it."

Deidara shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Hidan and I have worked most of it out. Besides, if anyone acts out…kkh!" Deidara made the same noise that one would make if mimicking the slicing of a throat, but motioned over his crotch instead, with a rather disturbing smile included.

"…Right." Obito shook his head. "Anything else? I'd like to keep my plans as complete as possible, so I'd like to know if I can work my way around yours."

"Well, there are a few things…"

o.o.o.o.o

A small hiss of pain came from Sasuke.

"Your hair is _really_ messy."

"Karin? Shut up."

The redhead shrugged, and continued to try and slowly work the brush through the spiky tangles that were now Sasuke's hair. "It kind of looks like those old paintings and statues of Uchiha Madara. Long and spiky, but you haven't been taking care of it, so it ended up like—"

"Karin, _shut up._"

Karin sighed and went back to brushing. "You could at least be a little thankful…"

Sasuke turned around to stare at her incredulously, the brush yanked out of Karin's hands by the movement. "Where did that come from?"

Karin blinked at the 'girl' in front of her, hands still up in the position they were in before the brush had gone. "What do you mean?"

"You _never_ talk to me like that. You never have, and certainly not when we're anywhere near one another without anyone else in the vicinity. What changed?" Then Sasuke's eyes narrowed, looking almost petulant on the girlish face. "Or are you an imposter?"

Karin crossed her arms. "You're a girl at the moment. It would just be… _awkward_, I guess. I mean, I still like you, and all, but I'm not a lesbian, or bisexual. I can't… ugh, just no. No, no, no."

Sasuke continued to stare at her.

Karin huffed. "Fine, I'll make it simple enough that even _Suigetsu_ would understand. I still like you. I'm not attracted to you sexually. I can't act like I normally do, as a result. So I'm just going to treat you like a female friend until Deidara-san changes you back."

Sasuke just kept staring.

Karin blushed in embarrassment. "J-just turn back around and let me finish fixing your hair, okay?!"

o.o.o.o.o

"Dei?" Hidan sat down next to his… fiancée. D**m, it felt good to say that word. H*ll, it felt good to even _think_ it.

"Hm?"

"Why do you keep staring at those two?"

Deidara turned his head slightly, but not quite enough to look at Hidan directly. "What do you mean, un?"

Hidan gave Deidara a look, unimpressed. "You know what I mean."

"The Nara and Sai?" Deidara shrugged, finally tearing his visible eye away from the two. He smirked at Hidan. "Sai's a painter, right, un?"

Hidan shrugged. "I guess? Why the f*** does it matter?"

"Think of the kind of help he'd be if we got him in on the symbol, un. He could make sure that all the blood got where it was supposed to go without nearly as much trouble as we'd have without him, un."

Hidan thought it over. "So you're trying to figure out how to approach him about it?"

"Plus a little something else, un." Deidara smiled slyly at Hidan. At the older man's curious look, he gestured for Hidan to come closer, leaning in himself. After several seconds of whispering, Deidara sat back, looking far more satisfied than he should have.

Hidan looked at Shika-chan (-maru was the ending to boys' names, so it didn't apply here, obviously; or maybe they just found it amusing to mess with Shika's name), and then back at Deidara. "You want a straight answer?"

"No, I want a gay one, un."

Hidan rolled his eyes. "You want an _honest_ answer, then?"

"Yes."

"That would be f***ing adorable."

Deidara laughed at that, falling slightly to the side to lean against Hidan. "Wonderful description, Hidan, un. Absolutely wonderful."

"You agree, though."

Deidara shrugged. "I'm not even the one who came up with it, un."

Hidan blinked. "Wait, then who did?"

Deidara grinned and pointed through the clearing. Hidan followed the gesture and his eyes landed on Sai.

"Oh, you have got to be f***in' kidding me."

There was a pause, and then he broached the subject. "What's going on with those two anyway?"

Deidara shrugged. "No clue. He's obsessed with her ears for some unknown reason, un, and she puts up with it, also for some unknown reason."

"…Do you think he might have a crush on her?"

"I hope not, un." Deidara frowned. "That would be way too cliché."

o.o.o.o.o

TenTen tried to hide her chuckling behind one hand. "Come on out, Shikamaru. I'm sure you look adorable."

"I'm not coming out!"

"At least he managed to suppress the tic this time." Neji muttered. He stood next to TenTen, fully male again. The only two that seemed to be kept as the alternate gender for any prolonged periods of time were Shikamaru and Sasuke, with Sai, Neji, and Suigetsu only getting short stints. Juugo and TenTen kept their heads down, and Karin was too valuable to risk alienating. Shikamaru's reason for staying that way was obvious, and Sasuke was apparently too arrogant, and too involved to stay that way (Neji wasn't involved enough for Deidara or Hidan to care quite as much as they did about Sasuke; Sai was just strange, not arrogant; Suigetsu was apparently funny enough to make up for the arrogance).

TenTen elbowed Neji in the ribs, and then knocked on the door again. "Come on, it's only a little accessory. Just one little thing!"

"It's embarrassing and troublesome, nya~!" There was a slap of skin on skin, and TenTen rather accurately guessed that Shika-chan had just slapped a hand over her mouth at the little… slip of the tongue, shall we say.

"Did I do something wrong in choosing it out? I only pointed it out to Deidara-san, and he was the one that actually suggested buying it. I assumed that I was making a joke." Sai stood next to them, seeming oddly perturbed.

TenTen shook her head. "No, Sai. If you actually were just making a joke, then Deidara's the one that took it this far."

Neji frowned and went over to the door. "Nara."

"…What?"

"You _are_ aware that, as I am a Jounin, and you are a Chunin, I am your superior, correct?"

"…S***."

"I order you to come out."

TenTen stared at Neji. "Wasn't that a little too much?"

Neji shrugged. "It saved us time."

The door slowly creaked open, and Shika-chan stepped out, looking absolutely miserable.

Sai made to step forward, and then hesitated. It was his fault, if only indirectly, that Shika-chan was unhappy at the moment, and the correct thing to do in such a situation was apologize, correct? Or was it friendly teasing? Perhaps he did not know Shikamaru well enough to tease him, or her, as the case may be. Or perhaps he should just avoid the situation altogether?

While Sai tried to figure out the social nuances of the situation he'd accidentally put himself in, TenTen stepped forward and examined the ribbon around Shika-chan's neck.

She reached out and flicked the bell that hung from the very center, stepped back to take a more holistic look, and then beamed. "You look adorable!"

Shikamaru/Shika-chan just sighed. She'd been getting that far too much recently.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I SWEAR THAT THE BELL IS ALL SCG'S FAULT.**

**Other than that, feel free to draw me things.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	44. Secrets, Secrets, Are No Fun

"_If you told him that the only good Commie was a dead Commie, he would buy you a cookie, because I think he was so staunch in his religion that he didn't even drink."_

_- My history teacher, talking about John Foster Dulles, Eisenhower's Secretary of State, and a very "staunch" Presbyterian_

o.o.o.o.o

"Sit down, Uchiha." Deidara pointed to the ground in front of him, sitting down as well. Hidan was next to him, and Sasuke was… distracted.

By the sudden lack of breasts on his person.

It was a happy distraction, though.

Sasuke was very happy to be male again.

"Oi, red-eyes, sit the f*** down." Hidan threw a small pebble at Sasuke's forehead.

Mostly for the h*ll of it.

But partially to snap Sasuke out of his distracted state and get him to 'sit the f*** down.'

Hidan wasn't very tactful.

Then again, neither were most of the other people in this motley crew.

Moving on.

Sasuke sat down, coming down into a cross-legged position with a thump. He sent a quick glare towards Hidan for the pebble, but then turned his attention to Deidara. "What?"

"Geez, aren't you rude, un." Deidara rolled his eyes. "Okay, you're saner than you were a month ago when I met you, right?"

"Right…" Sasuke stared at the blond man cautiously. "And?"

"The irrationality locus has been weighing on you since the soul flow to the demon realm was first rationed back when the temples were all destroyed. Unfortunately for you, that took place when you were about, oh, nine years old, and it's only been getting worse since then, as Hidan was the only one sending in souls, and hit a peak when he was buried." Deidara recounted the information that Sasuke had already been told.

"Where are you going with this?" Sasuke asked, eyes narrowed.

"How much of the Uchiha massacre actually made sense, un?" Deidara questioned him. "Not just at the time, but at all, un?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "That's none of your—"

"Au contraire. I know things about it, and about Itachi, that would make your head spin, un. The question is… are you brave enough to let yourself know and believe the truth, un?"

Sasuke leaned forward, eyes spinning into the classic red pattern. "What do you know?"

Deidara frowned at Sasuke's demand. "If you want the information, you're going to have to be a little politer, don't you think, un?"

"What the h*** are you playing at?" Sasuke demanded.

Deidara's visible eye narrowed. He knew this would be a sore spot with the youngest Uchiha, but he didn't realize that, even without the pressure of the Locus weighing down on him, Sasuke would be this sensitive to the subject. Apparently, the return of rationality didn't mean that all thought was rational now. At least he had a good reason to be sensitive. If he hadn't, Deidara would have incurred a little punishment on him already.

"Say please."

Deidara turned to stare incredulously at Hidan, who just shrugged.

"Fine."

Deidara turned back to Sasuke in surprise.

"…Please tell me what you know about the Uchiha massacre." Sasuke even bowed his head with the request.

"…I didn't expect that to wo—"

"Shut up, Hidan. He did it, so whatever, un." Deidara waved his fiancée off. "Okay, you can sit back up, kid. I've got some explaining to do, un, and doing it while you're bowing or whatever is going to be weird, so sit up straight, un, okay?"

Sasuke did so, and then looked Deidara right in the eye.

"What do you know?"

"Everything."

o.o.o.o.o

Half a dozen heads snapped up at the sudden wave of killing intent that washed over them, the sound of electricity snapping in the distance.

"Sasuke-kun…" Karin breathed. No, the chakra was right; Sasuke was male again, but this… she almost pitied the person who made him this angry. Almost, because to do this they were either very stupid or very powerful.

Judging by how Deidara and Hidan had led him away earlier, she was betting on the latter. Or both.

"Calm your f***ing a** down, Uchiha!" Hidan's voice rang out over the forest, followed by much shouting that seemed to indicate that Hidan had somehow gotten electrocuted.

Then they heard explosions, and the killing intent was gone.

"So…" Suigetsu drawled, standing up and hefting his oversized blade onto his shoulders. "Anyone wanna go check it out?"

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

The only one that didn't jump and spin in surprise was Karin, who had sensed the newcomer several seconds before he had spoken up.

"And just who are you?" Neji asked, eyes trained on the man, veins bulging.

"Oh, just a friend of Deidara's." The man chuckled, walking along the tree branch that he stood on. "No one to worry about, really."

"Your demeanor indicates relaxation, but that does not seem to fit the situation you are in. Are you perhaps trying to unnerve us by not acting accordingly?" Sai tilted his head to the side.

"Of course not! Tobi is a _good_ boy."

TenTen's eye twitched, and she muttered to Neji, "Is this guy for real?"

"Tobi is real!" He popped up behind her suddenly, inches from her ear. She immediately spun to stab a kunai through him, reflex, really, but lost her balance as she went completely through him, not receiving the expected resistance.

"Jumpy, aren't you?" Tobi chuckled, returning to his derisive humor, as opposed to his childish demeanor. The sudden switch was the kind that was designed to confuse opponents.

"I suppose." Sai tilted his head. "You are rather strange."

Apparently, it was meant to confuse opponents other than emotionally inept ROOT nin.

"No. I'm completely normal. The fact that my right side isn't even completely human and that I switch emotions on a dime just to confuse people makes me a perfectly normal human being." Oh, Obito. You and your sarcasm.

"Really?" …D*** it, Sai.

"No." Obito's answer was flat. He scanned the group. "I heard that Deidara turned one of you into a nekomimi of the opposite gender. I want to point and laugh, so where…"

His eyes landed on Shika-chan. "Ah. There you are. I shall now take the opportunity to point and laugh at your misfortune and the consequences of your stupidity."

Obito pointed at Shika, and, in as flat a tone as he could manage, said, "Ha."

Shika stared at him, not entertained in the slightest.

"Hm. Tough crowd." Obito tapped his mask where his chin would be.

The people on the inside might be, but I bet there's more than a few smiling fans on the other side of these screens, Obitobi!

"I know what you mean." Suigetsu apparently decided to ignore the potential threat of the man and have fun talking with Obito instead. "You're more likely to get punched than get a laugh with these guys. Especially around Karin."

"Hey!"

"I see. What about Deidara?" Apparently, Obito found nothing strange about the conversation.

"Fifty-fifty chance for one or the other, I'd say." Suigetsu mused on the idea. "It depends on his mood."

"Usually does." Obito shrugged, and then jumped up into a tree. "Well, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to meet a fifth cousin thrice removed or something. Actually, we're probably more closely related than that, but saying second cousin once removed or whatever just doesn't have the same ring to it. Nowhere near as amusing."

"What?" No one quite understood what had just happened.

"Well, _someone's_ got to tell that cousin of mine that someone else managed to survive that massacre. That was mostly because I was considered KIA because they thought I'd been crushed under some boulders, which I _was_, but then the old guy in the cave with the weird clone-tree saved me and the rest is history. Mostly Konoha and Kiri history. I'm probably the only chunin to ever be responsible for the deaths of two different Kage…" Obito trailed off, musing over the idea that he _had_ only been a chunin at the time of his 'death,' and he _had_ been responsible for the deaths of the both Yagura and Minato… come to think of it, hadn't Gaara technically died as well? Make that three kage, then.

"Are you _insane?_"

Obito looked down, eyes landing on the redheaded girl that had just yelled at him. He shrugged. "Possibly. Zetsu says it's trauma. I really just stopped caring. Well… bye! Tobi has to go take over the world now!" The abrupt change in his voice startled several of them, and he was gone by the time they gathered their wits again.

"…What the _h***?_"

Shika-chan's statement (or question, really) summed up the collective opinion on the situation fairly nicely.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: IT'S STILL NOT MIDNIGHT. SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD.**

**I know, I know. I promised a chapter every day, and this came really late and just… I got writer's block. And that hasn't really happened to me before, not with this story, and not so close to a deadline, so… I just sent in Tobi and hoped for the best (then the Internet decided to die again). I think the scene turned out alright, and it'll give me a springboard for tomorrow's chapter as well.**

**Also, I have a question for you all. You all know what this story comments on gender and sexuality, and you all know that I'm extremely pro-LGBTQ and whatnot. But, does that give me permission to write gay jokes like the 'straight truth' one in the last chapter?**

**By the way, a new contest will be going up, probably pretty soon.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	45. Just Who Are You?

"_So, the only way to cut defense spending was to nuke them. So you got a larger explosion for a lower price. And that's where the expression "more bang for your buck" comes from."_

_- My history teacher. And now you know that when you say that, you're referring to nuclear weapons!_

o.o.o.o.o

Obito landed in the clearing, and had to hold back a mocking chuckle, near instinctive at this point, from bursting out as he watched the scene before him in amusement.

Deidara was sitting cross-legged on the ground, arms folded and glowering. Sasuke and Hidan were both on the ground, unconscious and covered in burns… though Sasuke's seemed more fire-based burns, or explosion-based, while Hidan's seemed to be the result of an electric shock.

Of course, most people probably would have _died_ from that much electricity coursing through their bodies, Tobi mused, but Hidan was Hidan.

"I take it that telling Sasuke the truth didn't go well?" He sat down next to Deidara.

"P*ss off." Deidara growled. "I've got enough to deal with without you being a nuisance, un."

Obito rolled his eyes. "You want some help with Sasuke or not?"

"Tch." Deidara turned away.

"…I saw the lightning arcing out over the trees. What happened? Just how badly did he react?"

"Badly." Deidara groaned, leaning forward to put his head in his hands. "Worse than I expected, un."

"Well, he obviously wasn't going to react _well_." Tobi snorted. "The massacre shaped his entire life. To find out that he's been lied to about its very nature for years…"

"I know, un, but I didn't expect him to go on a rampage and try to destroy everything in the area. It was like p*ssing off a jinchuuriki. Everything's fine one second, un, and the next, you're being blasted back by killing intent and chakra up the whazoo, un."

"…Up the whazoo?"

"I will _hurt you_, un."

"I'm intangible. Nearly invincible. You _can't_."

"Could you both just shut the f*** up?" Hidan groaned and sat up slowly. The burns were half-healed already, but it would take a while for his skin to return to its former unblemished state.

"You're awake." Obito blandly stated the obvious.

"No s***." Hidan called him out on it.

"Well, no, I don't see any s*** around here." Obito waved it off.

"I hate you all, un." Deidara growled his displeasure.

"Nah, you love me." Hidan grinned and levered himself up. "You wouldn't have accepted if you didn't."

"…Shut up." Deidara looked away.

"In any case!" Obito clapped his hands. "What do we do about Sasuke?"

"Leave him there?" Hidan suggested.

The Tobi mask was surprisingly effective at conveying just how little this amused Obito.

"Or we could tie him to a tree, un, and wait for him to wake up. Slap on a few chakra seals, maybe, and lock up his fingers somehow so that they can't form seals, un, even one-handed."

Obito pointed at Deidara. "I like that idea much better."

"You're an a**."

"Please, like I haven't heard that before."

"Now, now, boys." Deidara rolled his eyes and moved over to Sasuke's body. "Do you think the paralytic was too much?"

"No."

"F*** no."

"Good."

o.o.o.o.o

Sasuke woke up slowly, groggily. He raised his head and, through bleary eyes, saw Deidara sitting in front of him, arms crossed and frowning.

He looked down, noticing the ropes, and realized that something felt off about his chakra.

"What did you…" The memories came back, and it was only the chakra seals that kept him from reacting the same way he did the first time.

"Stop talking." Deidara's expression didn't change, but his voice was cold, almost clinical. "You already made a mess of things, un, don't make it worse for yourself."

"Seriously."

"Hidan, shut up." Deidara didn't look up, didn't bother to watch Hidan roll his eyes.

Sasuke seethed. "You tell me all this, information that could change _everything_, and then you expect me to be calm?!"

"I expect you to be rational, un." Deidara clarified, and the words smashed into Sasuke like a freight train. No, Deidara wasn't trying to irritate him. Deidara knew exactly what he was doing and the entire concept terrified Sasuke.

"What do you want, then?" Sasuke asked sullenly. "You obviously had some motive, or you wouldn't have told me all of this."

"It was Tobi's fault!" And there was suddenly a swirly orange mask inches from Sasuke's face. His head jerked back, colliding painfully with the trunk of the tree behind him.

"Who are you?" Sasuke asked the question carefully, hesitantly. This man was probably a friend of Deidara's given the sigh that the blond gave at the childish man's sudden appearance. Of course, the unknown man was standing upside-down on the tree branch above Sasuke's head, and his face was obscured by an extremely childish-looking mask with only one eyehole, so whoever this man was, he was doubtless insane.

"Tobi is Tobi, but Tobi is also Obito, and Tobi is kind of Madara, and part of Tobi is like Zetsu!" The man jumped to the ground and gestured wildly as he spoke.

Sasuke stared.

"Or perhaps," The man's voice deepened, and Sasuke grew uneasy. "I'm just one of those, ne?"

"Stop messing with the kid's head; he's gone through a mind screw enough times as it is, un." Deidara snapped.

The man turned around. "I know you're male at the moment, but are you, by any chance, PMSing?"

Deidara stared at him, eyes half-lidded. "No."

"Ah." The man tucked his hands behind his back and whistled, walking around immaturely to stand behind Deidara. "That's good to know."

"Can someone explain what's going on and who that is?" Sasuke demanded, though his confidence wavered as all three turned to look at him, and not a single one was happy. Sasuke gulped. "…Please."

"Tch." Hidan shook his head, almost as though he were disappointed in something. "Just take off the mask, d***wad."

"…D***wad?"

"Shut up." Hidan snarked back.

The man raised his hands in mock surrender, dancing back a step and chuckling. "Alright, alright. I won't say a word."

"Oi. Idiots. Focus." Deidara growled.

Maybe you _are_ PMSing.

Deidara's head snapped up to look at the sky. "Shut. Up."

_Hush, hush,  
Hush, hush,  
There is no other way,  
I GET THE FINAL SAY~!_

Get it Dei-chan? I get the final say.

_Every time_.

Deidara glowered at the sky for several more seconds, and then turned back to face the others in the clearing. "Right. Mask off. Now, un."

The man tapped his chin, looking as though he was thinking it over. Sasuke, against his better judgment, felt his curiosity pique.

"I'm serious, un. We planned this, d**m it, un, don't ruin it now."

The man laughed, almost bitter, and then turned to look at Sasuke. "What do you say, boy? Would you like to see the true face of the man in the orange mask?"

"Did you just make a Dumas reference?" Hidan blinked at the man. (1)

Sasuke was very lost.

The man repeated the question.

Sasuke stared at him, measuring the pros and cons. Really, there was no way to reliably tell what fell into either group, simply due to how little information he possessed. But he needed information, so he nodded.

The man made no noise as he reached up and slipped the mask off.

Scars.

A Sharingan.

A wry, tired smirk.

Sasuke's mouth went dry as his head went blank. He could tell that this was an Uchiha, by the pale skin and the few remnants of what would have been a finely featured face. Itachi and Sasuke were supposed to be the last Uchiha left. And yet this man stood here, he stood right in front of Sasuke, clear as day. The man couldn't be alive, and yet he was. He could only be a ghost, or there was something far beyond Sasuke's knowledge that was going on. He licked his now dry lips, trying to ask the question that he _needed_ to have answered.

"Who are you?"

o.o.o.o.o

"Tobi went to do _what?_"

Zetsu felt the pressure on his windpipe, and was glad that, in cases like this, he could use his flytrap to breathe.

That didn't mean that having Itachi try to strangle him singlehandedly was _pleasant_, by any means, but it made it more bearable than for someone who _wouldn't_ be able to breathe like this.

"I told you, **he went to go tell Sasuke the truth.**"

"_Why?_" Seeing Itachi this distressed was rare. It wasn't a good thing.

"**Because Tobi believes Deidara and Hidan, **and if the world is really ending like they say, then we need Sasuke sane and focused. **He can't focus on helping fix the world if he's too busy trying to kill you, birdbrain.**"

Itachi _snarled_, and turned to stalk off. His entire demeanor was so grossly out of character that everyone who saw him immediately detoured to go 'anywhere but here.'

Everyone except Sasori.

"Bed, Uchiha, now."

Smooth, Sasori. Smooth.

"I thought you were supposed to be gone?!"

Never!

o.o.o.o.o

(1) Someone asked for an explanation of the Dumas reference, so here we go. "The man in the iron mask" is the most common name given to a French convict, possibly Louis XIV's brother, that was imprisoned during the late 1600s and the very early 1700s, until his death in 1703. Alexandre Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers, elaborated on the idea of the prisoner wearing an iron mask (a theme introduced by Voltaire) in the last part of his Musketeers trilogy, called The Vicomte de Bragelonne, where the prisoner wears an iron mask and is, in the book, Louis XIV's older, illegitimate brother. However, the way that Tobi phrased his question is more reminiscent of The Man With the Iron Mask, a novel by Henry Vizetelly, and numerous film productions with similar titles. If one is to look more closely, however, _The Man in the Iron Mask_ is also the name of the final section of Dumas' novel, which is based off of the legend.

And now you know.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: So depressing… this chapter. I mean, it's not 'make you cry' depressing, but it's boring. Which is why I messed with Deidara and Sasori again.**

**New contest on DA; you can win a one-shot if you enter!**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	46. Explanations

"_I think this is kind of like, if you want to make communism likeable, instead of heralded by death camps and insane facial hair, make it sound economic reform and [__**inaudible due to loud people in the way]**__."_

_- The usual guy. I just liked the facial hair bit._

o.o.o.o.o

"Obito."

"…That tells me nothing." Sasuke stated, unimpressed.

Obito smiled, a wry smirk that twisted the scars on his face grotesquely, and chuckled. "I suppose not. I was declared Killed in Action several years before you were born, after all."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "And you never returned?"

Obito chuckled again, a dark sound that would have brought shivers to a man less composed than Uchiha Sasuke. "Well, I wasn't really given much of a choice. I was… well, I wasn't quite a hostage, but I do believe that calling myself a captive would be accurate enough."

"You obviously escaped." Sasuke pointed out. "Why not return then?"

Obito tilted his head. "Who said I wanted to return then? The day I escaped was the day I watched the love of my life be killed by my best friend. I realized a number of things that day, though I doubt you would understand, emotionally stunted as you are."

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Stunted?"

"You're like a bonsai tree. Every time you try to grow a little, some dumba** comes by and cuts the branch off. Sometimes, you're the dumba**." Hidan explained, in his own peculiar way.

Sasuke stared at him, face blank.

Obito coughed, drawing the attention back to him. "In any case, there are a number of things you need to know. I'm aware that Deidara already told you that Itachi committed the massacre under orders from the Hokage, in order to prevent a war, but there's more to it."

"How much more?" Sasuke demanded.

"The truth about why the massacre was necessary. The truth about the Kyuubi attack. The truth about your former teammate. The truth about your former teacher and _his_ team. The truth about the end of the world as we know it."

"_It's the end of the world as we know it…_" Deidara sang softly, quiet enough not to disturb the two Uchiha, just barely audible enough for Hidan to hear and hum along.

Sasuke swallowed. There was a lot there that Obito had touched on, and even if he couldn't pinpoint what, there was _something_ in Obito's voice that showed just how important the information was, not just to Sasuke, but to everyone. Obito had information that many villages would waste countless Jounin to get a hold of. Obito had information on events that had shaped the world into what it was today.

"Well, little cousin?" Obito's voice was teasing on the surface, and there was a smirk on his face, but the hidden steel in both showed Sasuke how serious the situation was. "What's your answer?"

"…Tell me everything."

o.o.o.o.o

By the end of it all, the end of all the stories, the end of all the secrets, Sasuke was sure of eight things.

One, Obito was irrevocably insane.

Two, Itachi had every right to be called a hero.

Three, Obito had severely skewed priorities.

Four, Naruto was subject to way more secrets that had been kept from him than anyone had the right to be.

Five, Obito was _f***ing delusional._

Six, Deidara and Hidan were likely insane as well, except for that they knew too much.

Seven, as soon as he got the chance, he'd kick the a**es of the Nidaime (death be d*mned, he'd do it anyway), Kakashi, Obito, Shimura Danzo, and whoever was left from the Kiri of the third war, because the Uchiha massacre was mostly all of their faults.

Eight… Obito really needed to get his head checked. _Really_ needed to get his head checked.

Did I mention that Sasuke was thoroughly convinced that Obito was crazy?

Because he was.

"You know what all that means, un?"

Sasuke turned to look at the blond man, wary. "What?"

"We were wrong about the Yondaime Hokage. He obviously wasn't gay."

Sasuke felt his face lose all expression in order to convey his lack of amusement to Deidara effectively. Then again, the comment had lessened the tension in the area, causing everyone to become just slightly more relaxed.

"So, a**hole, can we let you go and not see you try to destroy everything again?" Hidan glared at Sasuke, but it wasn't as strong a glare as it could have been.

"…Yes."

"Good, un." Deidara came over and started getting rid of the ropes and seals. "I'll let you off with a warning because you had a pretty good reason to go all psycho on us, un, but do it again and I'll do two things. A, I'll beat the living c*** out of you, un. B, you'll be given kitty ears, and a tail. Hopefully a fluffy one, un."

Sasuke stared at him, not quite able to conceal the shiver that ran down his spine.

He didn't want to end up like Shikamaru.

_No one_ wanted to end up like Shika.

Except possibly Sai.

But Sai was abnormal anyway, so he didn't really count.

"So," Hidan clapped a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, and Obito did the same from the other side, slipping the mask back onto his face. "Let's get back to everyone else now, shall we?"

Sasuke glared at him, Sharingan turning, and tried to shrug the arms off of his shoulders.

Needless to say, his efforts were in vain.

"Eh… un." Deidara nodded, voicing his approval. "I want to talk to the Konoha group anyway."

"Why?" Obito tilted his head in the bomber's direction.

"You know how there's a Kage summit coming up because you got Kisame to bring in the Hachibi, un?"

"It was just a tentacle." Obito admitted, but nodded.

Deidara shrugged, bringing his hands up and lacing them together behind his head, tangling them in the long hair that rested there. "Right, well, the point is that the villages are obviously going to try to bring themselves together to fight us, un. They don't know the truth about recreating the Juubi and what it might do to help save the world."

Obito frowned behind the mask. "You mean…"

Deidara nodded. "After they've all banded together, ready to join forces for the first time ever, un, we'll send the hostages in, as a bit of a 'sorry gift,' but not."

"Have them explain…" Hidan started, comprehension dawning.

"Toss in little red-eyes here as well, un…" Deidara pointed at Sasuke.

"And Hozuki, they know he was taken by Orochimaru by force, not willingly…" Obito continued, excitement barely heard in his voice, but there.

"And if we can get that little b****, what's her name, Karin to somehow get the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki on her side by explaining that they're from the same clan…" Hidan continued.

"And a note from Nagato, explaining the same thing, maybe with some input from Konan, sent to the Toad Sage…"

"We could get the entire Elemental Nations on our side if we do this right." Obito concluded, watching Deidara closely. "You're good at wide-scale manipulation, Deidara. Not as good as I am, but good."

"You do realize that the chances of all of those working are next to none, right?"

"Shut up, brat, and just trust your elders." Obito smacked the back of Sasuke's head.

Sasuke rubbed the back of his head, biting down a snarky reply.

P***ing off three S-ranked ninja was not a good idea.

Even if one of them had decided to put his façade back up and was now chasing after a butterfly.

o.o.o.o.o

"Wait, Kisame-sempai got tricked by a _tentacle?_" This was the first question blurted out by Suigetsu.

"…Really? That's what you're surprised by?" Hidan stared at him. "Jinchuuriki have weirder techniques than Kekkei Genkai users. Get used to it, brat, 'cause it ain't changing any time soon."

"Well, yeah, but he's working with Sasuke's older brother, right? And that guy's a genjutsu genius, so even if sempai didn't see it, why didn't Itachi?"

"Itachi wasn't _there_." Tobi said, and there was amusement in his tone, even if he was still in his childish mode.

"…What? Why not?" Sasuke shot him a suspicious look.

Tobi shrugged. "Itachi-kun's gotta get bed rest, 'cause he's super sick and Sasori's a mean doctor."

"…Wait, what kind of sickness are we talking about here?" Karin demanded.

Tobi stared at her for several seconds, and then shrugged. "Tobi doesn't know! Ask Deidara-sempai!"

All eyes turned to the blond, looked up from where he was digging through his clay pouch. "Uh… I think Sasori no danna said something about his lungs. Pu… pulm… pulmonary edema, I think?" Deidara thought it over, but Karin's muttering distracted him.

"If it's got to do with the lungs and is severe enough to keep him from going on missions, then pulmonary edema _would_ make sense, but only if it was in an advanced state, though I suppose there could be other sicknesses influencing the…"

We'll leave Karin to her geeking out. It's better this way.

"Let me get this straight." Neji started, pale eyes staring around in the blandest, and thus most unnerving, manner possible. It was mildly effective. "Uchiha Itachi is suffering from an illness and has been for how long?"

Deidara thought it over. "A couple years, un? And it's only been getting worse, un. Danna didn't take him off missions until a few months ago, un."

Neji frowned, and then asked the question that was slightly more specific. "Is the illness fatal?"

Deidara glanced at Hidan, and then Tobi, and then turned back to Neji. "It… might be? I'm not sure, un, but I think so."

"So Uchiha Itachi has been suffering from a fatal illness for the past several years, his health degraded to the point where he is no longer allowed outside of your base for missions, and yet he has still been able to avoid capture, and you still insist that he could defeat Uchiha Sasuke in a straight fight?"

"…Yes."

"Sounds like a bada**." Suigetsu commented, slurping from his bottle and encountering the strange noise that comes from a straw sucking in only air and trace amounts of liquid. He glared down at the bottle. "D*mn it."

"My brother is _dying?_" Sasuke demanded of the Akatsuki members, only one of whom had the decency to even _pretend_ that he was embarrassed.

Then again, the one in question was Tobi, so the embarrassment may have just been in place to mock Sasuke.

"Well, yeah." Hidan rolled his eyes. "Everyone dies sometime, brat. Get over it."

"Un." Deidara nodded, and then grinned, sunny and bright. "And if all else fails, un, Danna can just turn him into a living puppet and keep him alive like that!"

Sasuke looked sick at the suggestion.

"Excuse me," Sai began, butting his way into the conversation. Around him, several people braced themselves for the inevitably inappropriate comment that he would probably make. "But why do you care? I thought you were quite eager to kill him. Why would you not be happy for the playing field to be leveled even the slightest bit?"

Everyone stared at him. Not only was the comment not inherently insulting, but he had raised a good point as well.

Deidara chuckled. "Well, looks like it's time for some more explanations, un, ne?"

Tobi clapped his hands delightedly.

Then he spun in on his eye and disappeared.

"…That b****rd. He left us to do all the explaining."

"Shut up, Hidan, un. Just think of it as a chance to mess with their heads just by using the truth, un."

"…Huh. You're right. This'll be fun."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Bah. Some of this seems a little rushed, but I think I did okay.**

**So, this is a little short and kind of drags on, but I wasn't exactly feeling very inspired. My grandfather died on Tuesday, and I couldn't attend the funeral because it was a trans-Atlantic flight away and I have my IB exams to do, so… well, I'm kind of depressed at the moment. Don't take it personally if I snap at you for some reason.**

**By the way, new contest on my DA account. The theme is strange relationships, so if you want to use one from GC, go ahead.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**


	47. But John, I'm Only Dancing

"_Please do not take Benelux if you are taking nitrates for—"  
"If you experience trouble urinating or breathing, please contact your doctor or—"  
"If you experience chest pains, then—"  
"If you experience a military alliance lasting more than four hours—!"_

_- …dear god, I couldn't stop laughing. Benelux is actually the nickname for the set of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxemburg. Obviously, one random guy in my class used the name as a joke on common medicine ads (lines one and three), after calling out to the usual guy, who replied (lines two and four). The joke here pretty much amounts to this: Benelux sounds like the name of a male enhancement drug._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Before you ask about the first scene… yes. I am a troll. Thank you for noticing now, if you haven't picked up on it in the forty six or so chapters preceding this.**

**Oh, and for those that are curious for how long this is all taking, I'll give you the timeline in terms of how pregnant Konan is (because that's the easiest way to do it, and it would be nice for you to know how far along she is).**

**(1 week): **Deidara gives Konan the scroll.

**2 weeks: **The artificial insemination works. (Note: the time of conception is, by general practice, considered to be two weeks along, due to the doctors using the date of a woman's last menstrual cycle as the point at which they begin counting.)

**4 weeks: **The pregnancy is confirmed.

**5 weeks:** Hidan and Kakuzu leave to catch the Nibi.

**7 weeks: **Hidan and Kakuzu kill Asuma.

**8 weeks: **Hidan gets buried and Kakuzu nearly dies.

**9 weeks: **Deidara runs into Sasuke, fights him, and decides to drag him along for some adventuring.

**11 weeks:** Deidara and Taka reach Hidan's "burial" site.

**12 weeks:** Hidan is fully healed.

**14 weeks: **Deidara makes the deal with Mamoru.

**15 weeks:** Hidan has proposed, Deidara and Mamoru finish the deal and agree to never see each other again.

**16 weeks: **Obito approaches Deidara and they begin planning on telling Sasuke everything.

**17 weeks:** Sasuke learns the truth.

**18 weeks: **This chapter. (In other words, Konan is, at this point, four and a half months along.)

…Wow, would you look at that. That's actually a pretty structured timeframe, wouldn't you say?

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara lay back on the hotel bed, relaxing her muscles as much as she could. "Hidan…"

"Hm?" The priest looked up from where he was fingering a threadbare patch on one of his pants.

"Can you give me a massage, un? Please?" Deidara stared at him with wide, hopeful eyes.

Hidan rolled his eyes and came over, flipping the blonde girl onto her stomach and straddling her back. She was soon making small, pleasured noises as he kneaded out the knots in her back, moans and groans and… there aren't many words that would rhyme with that and still make sense, are there?

"People would come to weird assumptions if they were at the door right now." Hidan commented lightly. "They'd think we were f**king."

Deidara shrugged sluggishly. "Meh. Let 'em think what they want, un. It's not like it would be that out of the ordinary for us anyway, un."

"Mm… you're right. Very, very right." Hidan leaned forward and pressed his lips to Deidara's neck, his hands no longer moving.

"Hidan…" Deidara breathed as she arched her neck to the side. Hidan granted the implied request, opening his mouth to start sucking on the soft skin that he was already peppering with kisses, nibbling slightly and calling forth a low moan from Deidara.

Deidara moved slightly, pushing herself up off the bed, and Hidan took the cue to move back and allow his fiancée to turn over underneath him. Deidara wrapped her arms around Hidan's neck, pulling him back down to the bed with her, lips already searching for his. They continued to kiss, though slowly, softly, controlled and sweet and utterly unlike what many would have expected, had they been asked. The passion built, but neither of them went into a frenzy, simply allowed the kiss to take them where it would.

Hidan pulled back, smiling down at the woman beneath him as she slowly released his neck and trailed it over his shoulders and down his chest, fingers roaming the planes of his muscles, and lips occasionally puckering just enough to reach from the palms to the pale skin below them.

"Have I ever told you how glad I am that you never wear a shirt, un?" Deidara murmured, looking up at Hidan through an eye that looked far too innocent.

"Mm… I think you might have mentioned it once or twice…" Hidan smirked down at her, excitement lighting his eyes as her fingers hit the hem of his pants and—

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

Hidan's expression flattened out, and he let his head hang down as Deidara's hands dropped, the woman herself letting out an annoyed groan.

"D*mnit, un." Deidara muttered, but put a hand up to shove against Hidan's shoulder nonetheless. "C'mon, move. I have to go answer the door, un."

"Tch." Hidan frowned and moved away, sitting on a chair and glaring at the door.

Unfortunately, the one at the door was Sai, which meant that he probably wouldn't realize what he'd done that was so wrong anyway, no matter who explained it and how.

"Hello, Deidara-san, Hidan-san." Sai smiled eerily at the two, and held up a plastic bag. "I took the liberty of acquiring some food for us."

Deidara raised an eyebrow. "Right… wait, what? How big of a distance did I increase the collars to, un? I know they were at a couple dozen meters at first, un, but I don't think I increased them _that_ mu—"

"I believe you set them to five kilometers on the night of Hidan-san's proposal, and then decreased it to one and a half afterwards." Sai answered promptly, not noticing the irritation that Deidara was leaking at being interrupted.

Deidara sighed and ran a hand down her face. "Right, so it was more than I thought… okay, what kind of food did you get, un?"

Sai blinked at her. "Sushi. I assumed it would be best to get something fairly normal, so as to avoid accidentally causing a dispute over a food that someone dislikes."

Deidara restrained herself from rolling her eyes with difficulty. "Anything else?"

Sai tilted his head to the side. "I believe Hozuki somehow acquired the hotel's music player and several discs of modern 'pop.' He requested permission to have a party of some sort."

Deidara stared at the pale boy in front of her. "You're kidding, un, right?"

Sai donned a look of confusion. "I was not attempting to tell a joke, Deidara-san. I was simply relaying information. Did I appear to be attempting to amuse you at any point?"

Deidara sighed, suddenly getting the feeling that she knew exactly what Sasori felt like when she was being annoying. "No. No, you did not, un."

"Then—"

"Just go and tell water boy that it's fine so long as he lets everyone else join in, un." Deidara waved a hand dismissively. After a second's thought, she reached out, grabbed the bag in Sai's hands, and closed the door in his face.

She turned to face Hidan, holding up the bag with the food. "Yay. Dinner."

Hidan rolled his eyes. "Yeah. F**king yay."

o.o.o.o.o

Konan sat on the couch, hand resting on the bump beneath her dress. It had been a while since Nagato had asked to her to stay off of missions, which meant that she, Itachi, and Nagato were all constantly restricted to the base. Sasori was there more often than the others, but even then, someone was needed to take care of bijuu-hunting (especially after the embarrassment that was the tentacle).

A small meow jerked her from her thoughts, and she glanced down with a smile to see Maia, the cat that normally stayed in Itachi and Kisame's room. The gray cat, adolescent now, sat on the floor by the foot of the couch, tail curled imperiously around her legs in the same manner of most cats. Konan made a small clicking noise with her tongue, beckoning the no-longer-kitten up onto the bed, a sentiment which the cat in question clearly shared.

Konan looked up, eyes scanning the nearby doors, because she knew that if Maia was here, Itachi was likely nearby as well. The cat adored Kisame, but with the frequency that Kisame was gone, she often went to the nearest person she associated with the blue man, which just so happened to be his medically derelict partner.

Sure enough, Itachi strode into the room, nearly gliding from how smoothly he entered. His eyes landed on Konan and Maia, the former of whom raised an arm and motioned for him to come sit down with her.

For lack of anything better to do, Itachi came and sat down next to Konan, hand near-mindlessly going to scratch at Maia's ears.

"They're coming back soon." Konan muttered, watching Itachi carefully. The man didn't flinch, but there was a tightness in his jaw that hadn't been there earlier. "Do you know how you'll deal with your brother being with them?"

Itachi's mouth twitched, just barely frowning, and his hand paused the scratching. Obito had only told him the full truth a week or so earlier, and by the masked man's own admissions, it was only a few hours earlier that Sasuke had been informed of the same.

Even Konan and Nagato hadn't known everything that Obito had revealed. Konan wasn't quite sure _why_ he was suddenly telling them all that he had been lying to them all this time, because it was grossly out of character for him to do so, but she also decided that it wasn't her place to question him. If Nagato accepted the information and admissions without complaint, than so would she.

"I believe we shall cross that bridge when we get there." Itachi finally answered, though the answer itself was not really such. Konan sighed and put a hand on Itachi's shoulder, meeting his gaze when he stiffened and looked up sharply at her.

"He's your brother, and knowing this, there is no doubt that he will continue to love you." Konan tried to assure him, but she could tell by the look in his eyes that this wasn't what he wanted to hear. "I know that that's not what you wanted, and you've been working against that for all the years since the massacre, but it'll be fine."

Itachi looked away, choosing instead to stare blankly at a wall.

Nice choice, Itachi. It's yellow and featureless. Congratulations on finding one of the most boring things possible to stare at.

Konan shook her head slightly and pulled her hand away from Itachi's shoulder, bringing it back down to pet Maia again. Really, these pregnancy hormones were making her far too maternal. "In any case, Sasori, Kakuzu, and Tobi will be leaving in several hours to go fetch them. Are you going to accompany them?"

A wry, humorless grin crossed Itachi's face, and Konan got the feeling that it was not an expression that crossed his face often, but may have been a signature expression had the man's past gone differently. "The day that Sasori allows me to go on something more dangerous than a trip to buy some milk is the day that I am miraculously cured of even my blindness."

"Which is what caused you to get the milk in the first place." Konan pointed out.

Itachi ignored that.

o.o.o.o.o

Kakashi shifted his position in the tree, looking around at the three teams he had with him for the… rescue operation. Sakura, Shizune, and Naruto were all with him. Gai, Lee, Chouji, and Ino were on the next team, and Yamato was heading Kurenai's old students, consisting of Hinata, Shino, and Kiba (along with Akamaru). Kurenai would have come along, but she was nearing her due date and not much use in a combat situation until she had fully recovered from carrying her child.

He brought the radio up to his mouth. "Hyuuga, report."

Hinata's hesitant voice replaced the static white noise. "Ah… they appear to be dancing, Hatake-san. Sasuke and his team are standing around, though one of them, the boy with the large sword, appears to be heckling the girl with the glasses. Neji-nii-san, TenTen, Sai, and Shikamaru are all sitting around the edges of the room. There are seals on them, and some sort of thick collar on their necks, one that TenTen in particular seems to be prone to fiddling with. Also…"

"What?" Kakashi didn't like that tone in her voice.

"Shikamaru appears to have been turned into a girl. One with cat ears and a tail." Hinata's voice was embarrassed, though whether the embarrassment was on Shikamaru's behalf or due to having to say what she did, Kakashi didn't know.

The older shinobi blinked, looking around at his team to see if they had any suggestions on just what to do and what was going on. They looked as confused as he did. He turned back to the radio, in time to hear Hinata's next question. "Do we take any action regarding Shikamaru's situation in particular."

"Maa… negative. We can deal with that later. I'm more interested in the collars that you mentioned."

"You would be, wouldn't you?"

Kakashi turned around, arm already whipping out a kunai and sending it through the masked man that stood there.

An expressionless, yet somehow leering orange spiral stared at Kakashi, almost mocking him. "Hello, Kakashi-kun. Would you like to play a game with dear little Tobi? Tobi likes games. He's a good boy, after all."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I've actually had the dance-party double ambush planned for months. Interesting way to play with it all, ne?**

**And for those of you who were wondering: yes. I did compare Konan and Kurenai's pregnancies like that (despite Kurenai being much farther along) on purpose.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	48. Tobi Gives a Public Service Announcement

"_Vladimir Putin is too busy strangling __**bears**__ with his bare hands."  
- The usual guy._

"_Today, I am going to teach you something very important. I am going to teach you how to survive a nuclear bomb. Take notes. Pay attention. Bert the Turtle's going to help you with this."  
- My history teacher._

o.o.o.o.o

Despite the rather loud attacks of some of the fighters from Konoha, only one person actively seemed to notice that there was a fight going on outside the hotel. This could probably be attributed to the fact that there was loud music, and Deidara and Hidan were smirking anyway because of the awkwardness of the "party."

Ergo, the only one to turn to the side and stare at the window for a glimpse of what occurred outside was Karin, who had sensed the large number of powerful chakra cores outside long before they actually arrived at the scene.

Of course, the fact that she was distracted caught Suigetsu's attention, as he had, 'til then, been jabbering away in an attempt to rouse her temper.

The fact that Suigetsu and Karin had stopped arguing caught Sasuke's attention, which in turn caught Juugo's.

Neji had noticed Karin's new line of focus the second that she had turned her head, and activated his Byakugan to look as well, which caused TenTen to turn her head in turn.

Sai and Shikamaru noticed soon thereafter, which meant that by this point, the only ones that hadn't noticed were Deidara and Hidan.

An explosion came from outside.

Of course, these two were already aware of the fight long before it occurred, because I told them straight out at the end of the last chapter by transcribing the enemy movements… and Tobi.

Who just jumped in through the window, grabbed a vase, stuffed it under his arm, and jumped back out.

Deidara and Hidan continued to dance, ignoring the confused minions and hostages.

Suigetsu awkwardly reached around Karin to turn the music off, not taking his eyes off the window. Karin smacked his arm as it accidentally brushed against her lower back, and he, in turn, elbowed her in the ribs.

Deidara turned to him, hands on her hips. "What did you do that for, un?"

"Did you or did you not see the guy that came in or hear the fight outside?" Suigetsu was slightly incredulous. You know, only slightly.

"Yeah, so?" Of course, Deidara saw no issue with… uh… hm…

"Shouldn't we, oh, I dunno, join the fight?" Suigetsu pressed on.

Deidara pretended to think about it. "Hm… nah, they can take care of it themselves, un."

There was suddenly a loud buzzing noise, followed by panicked shouts and the loud roar of fire.

Deidara nodded to herself and then looked to Suigetsu, smiling. "See? They're fine, un."

"Which puppet was that?" Hidan craned his head, as though he would be able to curve his vision through and around the window.

Deidara shrugged. "H*ll if I know. Half of them have _some_ sort of saw, un."

Sai had walked over to the window, and was staring out with his normal half-smile, though his eyes indicated nothing of the sort. "It would appear that part of the forest is on fire."

Deidara tilted her head. "Huh."

"Sasori's flamethrowers?" Hidan asked.

Deidara nodded. "Probably. Or the flaming chainsaw, un."

"…He's kind of a bada**."

"Yep."

By this point, most of the other residents of the room were looking at them in disturbed bemusement. Neji was the one to voice the overall sentiment. "Why are you unconcerned?"

Deidara shrugged. "Three Konoha teams against three S-rank nin, un, one of whom is nigh-unkillable because he's _intangible_ half the time, and the other two of whom have faced the Konoha team before and are well on their guard, un. I think we know who has the advantage."

At this point, Kiba and Akamaru were thrown through the window, and conversation halted.

Deidara tilted her head. "Though, I don't really like dogs, so I suppose I wouldn't have much of a problem getting involved if it meant keeping people who were uninvited _out_, un."

"You didn't react when the man in the orange mask was here." Sai pointed out, trying to figure out Deidara's logic, or apparent lack thereof.

"I invited him." Deidara waved the question off, staring down at Kiba, who appeared to be rather discombobulated from the blow to the head that he had suffered upon his reverse defenestration. Akamaru, on the other hand, was already on his feet, looking around the room as he stood defensively over Kiba's groaning form. He paused in his growling when he noticed the Konoha hostages. Obviously, Neji, TenTen, and Sai were confusing enough, but when Akamaru wasn't too stupid to recognize Shikamaru, particularly given that he had _heard_ Hinata's comment earlier.

Deidara just grinned at the dog in question. "Hey."

Akamaru was now confused. This was obviously the same woman that had terrified Team Eight several years earlier, but she was acting completely non-confrontational… other than the earlier comments about getting rid of him and Kiba.

Akamaru resumed growling.

Then Hinata, Shino, and Yamato burst in, followed by a presumably rather angry Sasori, who was chased by a somewhat confused pink-haired girl who smashed the floor to pieces.

Deidara blinked.

"Well then…"

Hidan summed it up. "F***."

o.o.o.o.o

The enemy that referred to himself as Tobi, Kakashi found, was incredibly difficult to land a hit on.

In fact, it was downright _impossible_, given that any attack that was on-target just went through the man and did no damage _whatsoever._

Naruto had suggested his Oiroke no Jutsu.

Kakashi had promptly shot the idea down.

Naruto had suggested genjutsu.

_Tobi_ had promptly shot _that_ idea down.

Sakura and Shizune had already split off to aid in fighting Kakuzu and Sasori, two enemies that Kakashi clearly remembered fighting. The two women would have stayed, but… well, Tobi didn't really seem all that interested in _fighting_ anyone. He just jumped around, avoiding everything, and mocked Kakashi and Naruto.

Not anyone else.

Just them.

"Poor Kakashi-kun, can't even hit little Tobi!" The orange-masked man sounded almost as though he was pouting.

"Do you _want_ me to hit you?" Kakashi asked, thoroughly fed up with this ridiculous fight.

"Hm… no, Tobi doesn't think that sounds very fun. Tobi saw Kakashi's birdy technique once, and he doesn't wanna go all ZZT! ZZT!" Tobi shook his body, as though rocked with electricity-induced spasms.

"…Right."

"Tobi doesn't think Kakashi-kun holds a very good opinion of Tobi's intelligence. Does Kakashi think that Tobi is _stupid?_" Tobi brought a hand up to his mouth, as though covering a gasp. "No!"

"…Quite frankly, you're not doing much to try and make me think otherwise."

At this point, Naruto stood up. Until this point, he had been oddly still and quiet, allowing Kakashi and Tobi to carry on their conversation.

When he stood up, it was with orange eyelids squinted down on yellow irises and rectangular pupils.

"Oh? Getting _serious_ now, are we?" Tobi's smile couldn't be seen, but it's mocking nature was easily heard.

His answer was a thrown Rasengan.

Tobi teleported out of the way, to just behind Kakashi, and sighed. His voice was noticeably darker when he spoke next. "Ne, ne, Kakashi-kun? Didn't you teach your student any manners? I'm insulted, really."

Kakashi jumped back, and then his mind caught up with what had just been said. "…Who are you?"

"You don't know me? Pity. I thought that forgetting faces was the spandex-clad idiot's schtick. Kisame certainly complains about it often enough." Tobi walked around the tree that he stood on, hopping from one branch to the next. An angry yell from several dozen meters off

"You're wearing a _mask_." Kakashi pointed out. "I can't _see_ your face."

"I could say the same thing about you, hypocrite." Tobi pretended to yawn. "Honestly, you're such a _bore_. I doubt you're as bad as you were as a child, though."

Kakashi's grip on his kunai tightened, even as Naruto (ineffectually) flew through Tobi with an Oodama Rasengan. "And how would you know what I was like as a child?"

Tobi shrugged. "I know everything, obviously."

Kakashi didn't bother to answer that, just stared at Tobi with a single, non-amused eye.

"Not much of a talker, are you?"

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Naruto demanded, completely frustrated.

Tobi turned to him, head tilting to the side inquisitively. "Well, that depends on which aspect you're confused about. Overall, though, I'd say… everything."

"Everything." Kakashi repeated.

Tobi nodded. "Yep!"

"…_Everything_." Kakashi repeated again, voice yet more dubious.

"Yes, yes, no need to wear the word out. It's a precious one." Tobi waved a hand flippantly.

"…" Kakashi stared at him, slightly uncomprehending.

"Oh, look, a butterfly!" Tobi ran off.

Kakashi looked over to where Tobi was running off to. Then he looked back to where Tobi had been.

Wait, why was that butterfly beige?

The butterfly exploded.

Tobi came back fifteen or twenty seconds later, to find Kakashi uninjured, a log having taken his injuries for him, and Naruto singed but otherwise unhurt, courtesy of his… Sage Mode. Annoying, Tobi thought.

Tobi held up the vase in his hand. "Do you see this?"

Kakashi nodded, though hesitantly.

"This is your brain."

He dropped the vase, allowing it to shatter it on the forest floor, some twenty or thirty feet below.

"This is your brain on drugs."

Kakashi once more stared at Tobi with a sincere lack of comprehension.

Tobi shrugged. "Alternatively, the vase was my sanity, and the falling signified the death of someone close to me a long time ago, which basically made me go insane… or so my psychologist tells me. Then again, my psychologist is Zetsu, and he's kind of an a**hole… In any case… All the leaves pierced by glass shards are the people that should have meant something to me, but they were all just kind of d**ks, so I stopped caring and killed them."

Kakashi looked down at the vase. He looked back up at Tobi. "What is wrong with you?"

Tobi tilted his head, moonlight glinting off of it. "And here I was, thinking I'd already answered that question."

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara frowned at the people that had just entered. "Oh, come on. Now what if we have to pay for that, un?"

Sasori, wait, no, _Hiruko_ sent her a withering glare. "Shut up, brat."

Deidara pouted and folded her arms. "Mean~!"

"_Shut up._" Sasori repeated himself.

Deidara noticed, out of the corner of her eye, Neji explaining something to the girl that was presumably his cousin, slipping her an envelope. Hidan noticed as well, but waited until the exchange was done to attack.

There was literally _nothing_ that letter could contain that Deidara couldn't somehow twist to benefit them.

_Nothing._

Sasori seemed to realize this.

"Of course I realized it."

…Or that.

Wait, when did that happen?

Seriously, I didn't plan a break that time!

…Clean up in GC, aisle 48!

Sorry, Sasori. You go back to what you were doing.

Maybe… oh, I know! The combined pressure of Sasuke being what he is and Sasori's propensity to being my target for breaks must have caused it!

Back to the story.

"What the h*ll was that, Bakuhatsu?" Sasuke demanded as he avoided a punch from Sakura and passed by Deidara. "Who the h*ll is saying all that?"

Deidara blinked at him, the blonde being one of the few people that had neither attacked nor been attacked (hostages notwithstanding), and then her mouth fell open.

"Did he just break the fourth wall, un?" Deidara looked to the ceiling.

…I'll fix that later. Get back to the plot!

Hidan attacked Hinata, though she was replaced by Shino, who turned out to be a bug clone, which dissolved under the swipe of the scythe.

Then a hand landed on the scythe, and pale eyes locked with Hidan's. "I don't care how dangerous these seals and collars are. _Don't touch my cousin._"

Hidan stared at Neji. He looked over to Hinata. He looked back to Neji. "Geez, overprotective much?"

Neji's eyes were still in active mode, and fairly narrowed in an attempt to look as intimidating as possible.

On a non-S-rank, this would have worked.

On Hidan? Not so much.

Fortunately for Neji, but unfortunately for his reputation, Hidan found him amusing and just patted him on the head and turned to attack Shino instead. "Aw, that's so weird that it's almost _cute_."

Neji twitched.

o.o.o.o.o

**Omake for dark-heika, reviewer number 500. Prompt: **An incident with Deidara and Maia that makes the former wonder if the latter can hear through the fourth wall. But left open ended, since Maia's a cat and therefore we can't know for sure.

**Enjoy!**

o.o.o.o.o

Maia only stared at the ceiling at rare intervals. Most of Akatsuki didn't pay attention at first, but then Maia would start looking at the ceiling several seconds before Sasori had a psychotic break of the fourth kind. Itachi was the first to notice.

Kisame was the second.

And Sasori was the third.

Deidara wasn't in the base, and hadn't been for months, and Hidan hadn't been either, but Sasori was still a fairly accurate gauge for any madness occurring elsewhere that the "authoress" felt like covering.

This wasn't to say that the Akatsuki, as a whole, admitted to and accepted that the authoress existed at all. However, they weren't so stupid as to assume that, with all the evidence put before them, there wasn't _something_ that gave them information, that there wasn't some method of communication over long distances, intentional or otherwise, that had allowed Deidara, Hidan, and even Sasori to know when the others were in danger or in some otherwise significant situation.

Maybe Maia was just reacting to the small shifting noise that came with Sasori stiffening before he freaked out at the voice again. Maybe she had a small precognitive ability that let her know when Sasori was going to talk to the "authoress" again. Maybe it was animal instinct. Maybe it was just a series of coincidences.

Deidara looked to the sky, many miles away, and clicked her tongue.

Maia's ears flicked up from where she slept, and she looked around for several seconds, then settled back to sleep as Zetsu walked past.

Well, I suppose we'll never know now, ne?

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: You'll get more soon, I promise! But yeah… this chapter went to some pretty strange places. Enjoy it for what it's worth? I don't even know what I did with Tobi.**

**Next review Kiriban is at 750. Let's see if we can make it to a full thousand by the end of the story, okay?**

**Shout out to ElementKitsune, who recced me (not just any individual story, but me as an author) on TvTropes!**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix.**


	49. Seriously, Tobi, Stop Messing With Them

"_It's a genderless noun. C'mon, guys, it's 2013, we've got to be accepting of genderless nouns. I don't care what kind of noun you are; you don't have to tell me."_

_- That was just so… so randomly _perfect_. And it even came from the usual guy, which is simultaneously surprising and not. Particularly since he claims to not like it when I quote him (which may or may not be serious), though I'm not too sure that he knows what GC is about._

o.o.o.o.o

Kakuzu wasn't all that disappointed with the way his fight was going.

Honestly, he was almost bored, this time. He wasn't going to underestimate his opponents, the way he had before, and this time, they didn't have that little genius Nara with them.

No, Deidara had the Nara.

Of course, while he didn't have to deal with anyone that was annoyingly intelligent, he did have to deal with a pair of taijutsu specialists that were destroying the trees around them, even with punches and kicks that weren't part of some specialized attack.

Well, Kakuzu needed _some_ excitement in this boring of a fight, he supposed.

The Yamanaka girl had disappeared for some reason, but a young woman, one with short, dark hair and over-long sleeves hiding senbon-shooters, had replaced her.

It still wasn't much of a fight.

Kakuzu almost smirked beneath his mask as the Akimichi barely dodged an enormous blast of fire from that particular 'creature.' It was almost amusing, how easily he could deal with most of this team…

_CRASH_.

Kakuzu winced as one of his creatures was thrown clear across the field. He looked over to see the older of the two taijutsu specialists, the one known as Maito Gai.

The man in the green spandex wasn't quite S-rank, but he _was_ known as the premier taijutsu specialist in the Elemental nations for a reason. Kakuzu placed him at a moderately high A-rank, at least, based solely on what he was seeing now, paired with the copious amounts of experience that allowed him to actually gauge an opponent's level without personal bias.

Right. No personal bias.

_No personal bias._

(Forget about the godd*mn Kumo seductress already!)

(The genjutsu just made you think she was that weak!)

(Never mind the fact that she apparently knew your cousin.)

(Knew the cousin 'intimately.')

(The female cousin.)

(Just ignore that fact.)

(Ignore it.)

_(Ignore it.)_

Ahem.

In any case, Maito Gai was probably the strongest opponent present. Hatake Kakashi was probably more dangerous, as was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, but… honestly, from what little Kakuzu could overhear, Tobi was doing more than enough in keeping the two confused and occupied.

"Tobi's a good boy!"

And there came the archetypical shout…

Come to think of it, hadn't Zetsu been the first one to say that?

Kakuzu shook his head, clearing his thoughts as he dodged yet another kick from the smaller green-clad Konoha shinobi, only to end up right in the path of a literally flaming punch from the larger one.

Hm… maybe he needed to focus more on the fight.

A giant fist came crashing down, and he barely avoided it.

Yes. He definitely needed to focus more on the fight.

o.o.o.o.o

The first thing to note about most of the fighting occurring _inside_ the hotel was that it was very haphazard and confusing. This was mainly because four people were incapable of fighting, two refused to get involved, eight were fighting normally, one was fighting reluctantly, one was almost bored while fighting, and the last was laughing his head off while trying to kill everyone in the vicinity.

In other words…

Neji, Shikamaru, TenTen, and Sai couldn't fight.

Deidara refused to get involved, and Karin just dodged everything (and quite easily, too).

Yamato, Sakura, Shino, Kiba, Akamaru, Hinata, Sasuke, and Suigetsu were all just plain fighting.

Juugo was fighting, but didn't seem to want to be there. (Actually, he said hello and apologized to Hinata before nearly smashing her head in.)

Sasori was bored.

And Hidan was just trying to kill something while laughing his head off.

Overall, it was exactly what you would expect, other than the fact that everyone was crammed into a single hotel room, with almost no room to move, and a girl in a tree outside trying to figure out who to possess for the best effect.

Ah. Right. Didn't mention that part earlier, did I?

Sasuke threw a Raiton spear through the giant hole in the wall, forcing Ino out of her hiding spot and into the open. He kept his face clear of emotion, but inwardly smirked at his actions.

Stop listening, Uchiha. It would seriously be a benefit to you and everyone around you if you stopped listening to me.

Deidara pinched the bridge of her nose, sighing and ignoring the chaos around her, other than to dodge when an attack came too close. Honestly, it wasn't even much of a fight, given that the only Konoha nin present that actually posed a threat to Sasori were the pink-haired girl and the older man. The pink-haired girl had ended up fighting Sasuke instead, which was a plus in most books, while Hidan was taunting the bug boy, and Suigetsu was messing around with the boy on the dog. Juugo was in a half-hearted fight with the Hyuuga girl that was apparently Neji's cousin (then again, weren't all Hyuuga cousins to some point?), and that left Sasori fighting just the man with the…

Was that Mokuton?

Deidara tilted her head at the sight.

Well.

This was going to be fun.

She needed to let loose a little anyway. It had been weeks since her last good fight, after all.

Mouthed hands dove into clay bags and Deidara shouted. "Hey, Danna, let me take a shot at him, un!"

o.o.o.o.o

Kakashi glared up at the man in the orange mask that _still_ wasn't attacking, just mocking him and Naruto.

Unfortunately, the man that called himself Tobi was succeeding in that endeavor, and quite well at that. This was particularly infuriating because, despite the lack of almost any information _whatsoever_ that Konoha had on the man known only as "Tobi, the 'good boy,'" Tobi apparently knew almost everything there was to know about them.

"Where are you getting your information?" Kakashi demanded, seconds before releasing an over-sized Suiton at Tobi, one that was, just like all his other attacks, completely ineffectual.

Tobi chuckled, and his voice took on its original, childish cast. "Tobi doesn't know anything about Hatake-san! Tobi's a good boy!"

"Shut up!" Naruto attempted, once again, to shove a Rasengan through Tobi's head.

Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, he failed.

Miserably.

He landed face first against the tree behind Tobi, actually.

This wasn't necessarily due to any ineptness on Naruto's part, nor any lack of intelligence. It was simply a fact of life that, wherever Tobi was in his good boy guise, people ended up in unfortunate slapstick situations. Wherever, and whenever, Tobi was in his bad boy Obito guise, people tended to end up dead or dying.

When the two were mixed or frequently exchanged for one another, then Strange Things happened. Not just strange things, but Strange Things.

"Or maybe," Tobi's voice dropped again, regaining the dark, mocking, amused tone that he had used so much so far. "I've been watching you. Maybe I come by, every day, and just watch you live your life. Maybe, just maybe, I even watch you sleep."

"…" Kakashi took a step back, disturbed beyond all reason. He said as much.

He also hid a smile after a few seconds, because it would be inappropriate to laugh in the middle of a battle, no matter how amusing Naruto's face was.

"You can't have been following me." Kakashi asserted. "I, or some other Konoha nin, would have sensed you."

Tobi tilted his head to the side. "Oh, really?" He nearly purred the words, they were so undeniably amused and low. "Can you sense me now?" He teleported to a different position, his voice echoing about as he went from place to place. "How about now? Can you sense me now? Now? _Now?_" At the last question, Tobi appeared less than a foot behind Kakashi.

Kakashi spun around, driving a Chidori through the space that Tobi occupied. Then, seeing that it had once more had no effect, he paused and ran over the last few seconds in his mind. "…I guess you _could_ be a pretty effective stalker. I'd still prefer to think that you weren't, though. If only because imagining you stalking me makes me want to lock myself in a box, hug my knees, and never come out."

"Tobi just wanted to see Kakashi-san's face!" Tobi wind-milled his arms, squealing. "Kakashi-san always hides his face, and Tobi wants to see it!"

Kakashi didn't reply, just sent another powerful ninjutsu, and another, and another, and then started chasing Tobi as the man ran away, Naruto coming along as back up.

Farther from the hotel.

Farther.

And farther.

And farther.

And then Tobi disappeared.

Realization struck both Naruto and Kakashi when they lost Tobi.

Sure, they may have been chasing the real Tobi.

The real Tobi, however, could teleport.

Right back to the hotel.

They couldn't.

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara wasn't very surprised at how easy it was to take down most of the Konoha nin. Few of them were above chunin, and the even the ones that _were_ Jounin couldn't really stand up to multiple S-ranks attacking them, which was the case whenever one fight was finished. Sasori wanted to take some of the unconscious bodies once all was said and done, but Deidara stopped him, Tobi backing her up.

"Don't. I've got a plan, and taking them, un, no matter how useful it may seem at the moment, is going to hurt us in the long run, un, Danna."

Deidara's words weren't exactly the most convincing ones that Sasori had ever heard, but they worked, if only because Sasori knew to trust Deidara's judgment by this point. Not that Deidara was particularly mature or worth listening to on most occasions, but if Deidara insisted that, yes, this _was_ a big issue… well, Sasori would at least consider it.

That didn't mean he had to like it… but he went along with it.

Tobi stared at the large group that he would now have to teleport back to the Akatsuki base.

Twelve people, plus himself.

The four hostages.

The four minions.

The Zombie Combo, and the Artist Team.

Plus him.

This was gonna suck.

But he did it anyway.

…Even if he did them in smaller groups.

Stop laughing, Deidara. It's not that funny.

"Oh, but it _is_, un."

"Seriously, Bakuhatsu, who the h*ll is that?"

"Shut it, Uchiha, un."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Why was this chapter so hard to write? Ah well, at least I wrote it. If nothing else, it's… um… well, I messed with Kakashi and Naruto's heads? Yeah, this was a bit of a subpar chapter.**

**Anyway… what now… oh, right. So, there's still a month left for that "Strange Relationships" contest I'm holding on dA, and you're all welcome to join. If you have an idea for it, be my guest and join in.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	50. Welcome, and Welcome Back

"_I didn't even do anything! I didn't even touch you or—are you that well trained?"  
"Yes."  
"So you're like a dog, and I'm the spray bottle?!"  
"Yes… Woof!"_

_- The sad part is that I'm pretty sure that the guy next to me really is that terrified of me. We're friends… I think, but he's still a little scared of me. Because of my creepy smiles and terrifying "flirts." Maybe._

o.o.o.o.o

"Just kick in the door, un."

"I'm not kicking in the door."

"Just kick it in!"

"No, Kakuzu will f***king yell at me about it!"

(Tobi swirled in with the hostage group, took one look, sighed, and left again.)

"I'll just get Danna to fix it, un."

(Neji stumbled to the side, braced himself against a wall, and was promptly sick, and quite loudly at that.)

"Deidara, I'm not kicking in the d*mn door."

(TenTen patted his back awkwardly as Sai stared in curiosity, and Shika-chan covered her overly sensitive nose to the smell of vomit.)

"It's a door, un. It's not going to hurt you if you kick it."

(Sai tilted his head. "Perhaps he is nauseous due to the teleportation. A variant of seasickness?")

"Dei, I love you and all, but I'm not kicking in the door."

("Shut up, Sai." TenTen and Shika-chan admonished him simultaneously, one in an almost matronly tone, and the other rather exasperated.)

"But it would be funny!"

("This is going to be troublesome to clean up…" Shika-chan glared at Neji's vomit. Not even at Neji, but at the vomit itself.)

(It was evil vomit.)

"I'm not ki—"

"Would you two just shut up already?"

Deidara and Hidan paused in their argument and turned to look at Sasori. Deidara tilted her head to the side. "Whaddaya want, un?"

Sasori motioned at the door. "I'd like to enter the base. Don't keep me waiting."

Deidara blinked for a second, and then turned back to Hidan. "Just kick in the door, un."

There was a soft noise, followed by several loud thumps, as Tobi swirled in with the 'minions,' the final group to arrive.

The 'hostages' had been staying quiet and unmoving under Kakuzu's glare. Given just how disturbing Kakuzu was, this was completely warranted.

"Please, un~?" Deidara wheedled, hands clasped under her chin, eyes wide and watery.

Tobi came up to Sasori and tapped the Hiruko puppet he was hiding in on the shoulder. "Should I ask?"

"…No."

"Fine." Hidan finally broke. "I'll do it."

"Yes!" Deidara squealed, and then turned to look at him again. "And you'll—"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll do that part too."

"I love you~!" Deidara giggled and hugged him, and then stepped back and gestured to the door. "It's all yours, un."

Hidan sighed and walked up to the door. He leaned back, raising one foot up in a rather high chamber… and kicked the door down, just as he'd promised.

He strode in, threw his head back and his arms into the air. "I'M BACK, B****ES!"

There was silence for several seconds, broken by Zetsu, who was, along with Kisame, the only one in the entry hall. "**D*mn it. There goes the peace and quiet.**"

"Oh, f*** you." Hidan muttered and then turned to Deidara, crossing his arms. "There, I did it. Happy?"

Deidara nodded, grinning widely. "Very."

"Deidara!"

The girl in question blinked and turned around, squealing. "Konan-nee!"

She dashed forward, being pulled into a hug… and then subsequently bonked over the head. "What were you thinking, Deidara?"

"Wha—?"

"Do you have any idea how worried I was?" Konan had her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. The bump under her dress was barely discernible, but no one really paid attention to that in favor of stepping back and keeping an eye on her expression. "Zetsu told me about your C0 stunt seconds after it happened. Do you know how much you worried me and everyone here when you used that technique? You could have died Deidara, and by your own hand, at that!"

Deidara blinked at the uncharacteristic outburst from Konan. "Nee-chan, I—"

"That's true, actually." Sasori said this while climbing out of his Hiruko puppet, garnering looks of shock from the non-Akatsuki present. "Loathe as I am to admit, your suicidal attack was not very healthy for the minds of anyone here, and with the… _delicate_ constitutions of so many members, particularly at the time, the stress wasn't appreciated. We…" Sasori seemed to struggle with himself to force out the next line. "We _care_ about you, Deidara, and no one wanted to hear what Zetsu and Tobi told us."

"I knew what I was doing, un." Deidara muttered. "I knew I'd survive, somehow. There was a _point_ to it, un. Besides, we're shinobi! Death is a part of the job, un, not something to be afraid of! It's a constant risk, so—"

Konan crossed her arms under her bust, which was now slightly larger than it had been, courtesy of the pregnancy hormones coursing through her body. "But not by suicide technique, Deidara. I know that you're fully capable of handling yourself, and I know that death is unavoidable in this career, but that's not the point here. The point is that, with your mental state, none of us are ever sure if you're going to _choose_ to avoid it when you can. There's always a constant risk with you regarding that, and with your recent actions, it's only gotten worse, because the problem is now further into the open and clearly worse than we had previously thought."

Deidara stood stock still, hands fisted at her sides. Hidan stood behind her, but hung back and refrained from interfering. This was something that needed to be dealt with now, before the feelings had a chance to fester and be squirreled away, the parties involved misunderstanding both themselves and one another.

"I-I didn't m-mean to m-make anyone…" Tears were gathering at the corner of Deidara's eyes, and her arms had come up to grab at her midsection, hugging herself, almost of their own accord.

Konan's face softened, and she reached forward to pull Deidara into a hug. She held the blonde girl's head to her chest, running a hand soothingly down her hair. "We're concerned Deidara, and you have to keep in mind that your actions affect other people as well. But don't… don't cry, alright? None of us want you to cry, Deidara; that's not what I was going for. Just… just don't scare us like that again."

Deidara didn't answer, just clung to Konan and refused to let go.

Suigetsu sidled up to Obito, muttering out of the corner of his mouth, "So… is this normal?"

"Konan acting as a mother or sister figure to Deidara?" The masked man shrugged. "More or less. Konan tends to act rather maternal towards the younger members, and some of the older ones as well, when she thinks they need someone like that in their lives. In this case, she more or less representing most of the Akatsuki's feelings on these matters. The three people closest to Deidara other than her are Sasori, Hidan, and myself, but she's the best choice despite that. Hidan couldn't pull off being the responsible authority figure, and there are similar issues with me. Sasori _could_, but his ability to emote is… stunted, for lack of a better term."

Suigetsu nodded and shuffled back over to the rest of the 'kids,' presumably to share the information. Obito didn't really care to check. He was slightly more interested in noting that Sasori had actually broken off from the group to slip down a hallway. Obito presumed that the puppeteer would be back soon, but if he wasn't… well, Obito wouldn't really care unless Deidara took offense, really, and that was because Deidara was one of the few people Obito bothered to worry about.

A small gray bundle of fur suddenly streaked out from one of the hallways branching off from the entry point, and launched itself up to latch onto Deidara's outer skirts. Deidara pulled away from Konan slightly to look down, and grinned, however watery said grin may have been, at what she saw. She quickly reached down and scooped up the creature. "Maia-chan!"

The cat in question mewled and then began to purr as Deidara hugged her close, rubbing her own tanned cheek against the smaller, furry face. "I missed you, un~!"

Deidara continued in that vein for about fifteen seconds, and then paused as an idea came to her. She turned to Shika-chan, a mischievous smile on her face. "Oh, Nara~!"

Shika-chan froze and then slowly began to back away, hands waving in front of her chest. "No, no, no, thank you. Cats are—"

"Let me guess, troublesome?" Karin interrupted, smirk ever-present.

Shika-chan shot her a look. "Yes, very. Anyone from Konoha would know about Tora, and that—"

"Shut up."

Heads turned towards Sasuke. Suigetsu was the first to ask what was up with the interruption. "Oi, what was that for?"

Sasuke shot him a dirty look, and then turned to the hostages. "Shall we agree to never mention that beast here?"

There was a slight pause, as none of them really wanted to agree with him, but neither did they want to talk about the Madame Shimiji's cat. Then, ever so hesitantly, they actually went ahead and agreed.

"…Okay…" Deidara coughed loudly to regain their attention. "So, Nara, un."

She didn't bother continuing, just dropped Maia lightly to the floor, letting the cat, now nearly an adult, face Shika-chan.

The result ended up as Shika-chan awkwardly standing in place as Maia purred and wound around her ankles.

"Found you, finally."

Deidara blinked and turned around, smiling when she saw the new arrival. "Kisame!"

The blue man let out a slight 'ooph' as Deidara collided with him and gave him a hug. "Well, that's a nice hello."

"M-hm!" Deidara giggled and stepped back. "Oh! I found someone who's taller than you, un!"

Kisame chuckled, a strange noise. "Of all the things… alright, is it one of your little groupies?"

Sai leaned over to Neji, hand over mouth. "Hyuuga, what is a 'groupie?'"

Neji shook his head. "I'll explain later."

"Eh? I don't know what you're talking about, un." Deidara tossed her hair, nose up in the air, biting her lip to hold back a grin.

Kisame laughed loudly at that, a full belly laugh, and the two continued to talk about… well, more or less just nonsense, really.

This was a novel situation for the minions and hostages, or as Kisame had called them, for the groupies. Thus far, Deidara had always been the one to take control of every situation. Deidara had, until now, only even been mature in front of them. She was older than them, and had attempted to keep control, and even care for, them as her sense of responsibility and guilt took hold of her. Seeing her now, they were taken aback at how childish and free she was around the people that _she_ considered authority figures and… family.

That's what it was. Akatsuki was strange and probably at least a little evil (none of the minions were really sure), but overall… they cared for each other. None of the members had anyone else, and somehow, this motley crew of social misfits, of dangerous criminals and powerful shinobi, these _villains_… had found family in one another.

No members of the strange little audience were foolish enough to believe that they were seeing a common sight.

"Deidara." Sasori stood at the entrance of one of the hallways, and motioned for the girl to come closer.

Deidara did as requested, and turned her back to the rest of the room to hide the conversation, keeping her voice low. "Yeah?"

"Are you sure that now is a good time?" Sasori looked her in the eye. "I know you want this over with as soon as possible, but it's late and we all only just got out of the fight."

Deidara shook her head. "Yeah, but I said 'as soon as possible' after we got here for a reason, un. I doubt waiting a night would be good on either end of the situation, un."

Sasori kept her fixed to the spot with a measured stare, gauging some unknown quantity. Finally, he nodded and turned. "He's right here, so whenever you're ready…"

Deidara smiled and nodded. "A minute, tops, un. Just let me talk to little Red-Eyes, un, m'kay?"

She turned and bounced over to Sasuke, slinging an arm around his shoulders and ignoring the suddenly stiffer set to them. "Hey, Uchiha, mind if I take you away for a second, un?"

Sasuke sent her a sidelong glare. "And just what do you want with me?"

"Mm… no, I'm pretty sure that you'll be pretty interested in this, un." She sent him a cheery smile that was, beneath it all, terrifying gleeful in impending destruction.

Sasuke frowned. "You still haven't told me what this is." He had his suspicions, but…

A cough interrupted the conversation, and Sasuke spun around, _knowing_ who this must be, given what had just been said.

"Hello, otouto."

"Aniki."

And for the first time in many years, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke looked each other in the eyes with no lies and no hatred between them.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Cliffhanger! Yes, yes, I know. I'm evil. Whatever. You'll get the continuation next week anyway, so no complaining.**

**So… fifty chapters! Wow. Never really thought I'd get this far, but… wow.**

**Also, go look up "Sai and Shikacat" on dA, by Equestrian-Equine. It's… it's just adorable. Really. I wanna hug 'em both, and Eques, because they're both so cute.**

**Lastly, there's a poll up on my profile, and it's a pretty important one. I'm sure you'll all be interested in it, if you haven't seen it already.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	51. Clash of the Uchiha

"_If you were to do that, I wouldn't say 'That's a bird.' I would say 'That's a sad, sad man.'"  
- The usual guy. Someone else was making bird calls. Yeah. It was that kind of day._

"_I can just walk by [ninth grade history teacher] and literally see her day get ruined. Seriously, she's walking along, smiling, sees me, __**instant**__ frown."  
- The usual guy._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Before you do anything, go look up DemonLantern on DeviantArt. That guy's got an **_**enormous**_** gallery stuffed to the brim with HidaDei, so if you enjoy GC… well. You probably already know what to do. I've spoken with him several times, and he'll probably be pretty happy to talk to any other fans of our star couple, so go say hi and take a look around, m'kay?**

**Also, I'm taking a huge step with this chapter. I just… it didn't have the same impact with the asterisks, so I had to write out the curses. Don't expect this to become a common occurrence. As soon as this scene is over, I'll go right back to what I've always done. (I'm cringing on the inside, really.)**

o.o.o.o.o

Last time: _And for the first time in many years, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke looked each other in the eyes with no lies and no hatred between them._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara looked around the room and tried to make sure that everyone was backing away from the impending explosion, metaphorical or otherwise (and as much as Deidara loved explosions, this was one that she was _not_ prepared for), that was about to occur in the center of the room.

A lack of lies and hatred did not mean a lack of anger. It did not mean a lack of resentment. It did not mean a lack of… of anything and everything that could cause the inevitable outcome.

"Well, we'll just leave you two alone for now, un…" Deidara practically chirruped, trying to herd people out of the room before things got too intense. She'd planned on having the confrontation in another room, planned on making sure that people didn't get in the way, get in the _crossfire_. She may not have liked them all, but… okay, so you don't spend that many months with people without either hating them or at least liking them a little, at times, and Deidara had unfortunately ended up with the latter. Lima Syndrome, she supposed. It was like Stockholm Syndrome, but reversed.

"You complete and utter _bastard!_"

Deidara winced as Sasuke's voice rang through the base. It was raw. It was sad and angry and broken and just yearning to feel a loved one's touch, just this one last time.

Deidara knew. She'd been there.

A quick look to the other present Akatsuki members ensured that the hostages and minions were quickly shuffled out of the hallways and into the guest bedrooms that had never had much use before. Sasori stayed behind as a guard, and Hidan and Konan just nodded and urged her back to the supposed battlegrounds. Kisame came along, but that made sense, and Deidara wasn't about to stop him. Kisame probably should have been the only one there, from a point of view focused on privacy. However, even Kisame wouldn't be able to stop _both_ of the Uchiha brothers in a fight, as he'd often admitted to barely being able to hold his own in sparring matches against the elder of the two.

Kakuzu and Pein were nowhere to be seen.

"Sasuke, I understand that you—"

"You understand _nothing!_"

Deidara glanced at Kisame in worry, and pointed at the wall, making a circular motion. It wasn't an actual hand sign, but it got the message across well enough, and Kisame quickly put up several silencing seals. They edged into the room quietly, neither one willing to watch, but knowing they had to.

Kisame for Itachi's sake.

Deidara… for reasons known only to her.

"All these years, Itachi! All these years, I've tried to hate you! I've tried to hate you for what you did, tried to make myself push everything I know out and just _kill you!_ Do you know how much it hurts, to lie to yourself until you're convinced that you hate the person you care most about?" Sasuke reached out and grabbed the front of Itachi's robes, yanking him closer and those were _tears_ streaking their way down his face, weren't they? "Do you have any idea how fucking _painful_ that is?"

"Sasuke, I—"

"You could have done something! Maybe you couldn't have stopped the massacre! Maybe you couldn't have kept yourself from being labeled as a nukenin! Maybe you couldn't change any part of the big picture, but you could have at least _fucking taken me with you!"_

"You were a chi—"

"Where the _hell_ do you get off painting yourself up as a martyr, huh?" Sasuke let go of Itachi shoving him away and moving to start pacing around the room. "Where do you get off playing the tragic hero? Where do you get off trying to _manipulate me into hating you for whatever mad plans you've had in store?_ I am not your puppet to kill you for your atrocities, aniki."

"I was _never_ a hero, Sasuke." Itachi spoke quietly, a strong contrast to Sasuke's loud, roiling anger.

"No, you weren't." Sasuke's voice was cold, but the clashing emotions, buffeting one another around inside of him, were still very, very present. "You never were."

They stared at one another. Sasuke's eyes were spinning madly, the tomoe completely blurred. His face was emotionless, but his eyes showed that his face hid the truth, hid the pain and anger and love under a stone mask.

Itachi's face was worse. While Sasuke at least had his eyes to convey emotion, to show that he was human, Itachi had nothing. His eyes were almost dead, the only emotion being one of a strange sort of hopeless agony and despair, an acceptance of whatever punishment was necessary to atone for his sins.

Pain, death, humiliation… Itachi would take any of it.

Sasuke seemed to realize this, mid-tirade.

"What would you have me do, Sasuke?" Itachi looked up, the Mangekyo on and turning, spinning so very slowly, hypnotic in its dreary circles. "Go back in time and undo the massacre? It would only happen again, only by the ANBU's hands instead of my own this time. Spit on their graves and pretend I enjoyed it? You know it would be a lie. Crawl back to Konoha and beg forgiveness? The advisors know, and they would not stop the rest from sending me to the lowest depths of the Torture and Interrogation building. Die for what I did? I'm already on my way there, and have been for years."

"I—" Sasuke stumbled over his words, but then his face hardened. "You don't get it, do you? Everything you do, you end up as some twisted mockery of a pinnacle of righteousness, even if you're the only one who knows. Even if you're in denial about it, you have this _urge_ to twist the world around you until you've nearly destroyed yourself and those closest to you making it better. You're a self-destructive creature, Aniki, and it's only spread from there."

"Then _what_, Sasuke?" Itachi's voice was still lower, but there was a steel edge to it. "What do you want? What is there that I could possibly do to make up for what I've done to you and the rest of the world? If you can think of anything, I'll gladly try."

"Be my _brother_." Sasuke hissed, eyes slowing. "Be the brother that I need and want, not the brother that you think I need to survive. I'm strong enough to survive what I have until now, and it is pointless to continue your insane, suicidal sacrifices."

Itachi looked Sasuke in the eyes, and there was an emotion on his face, only the barest hint of one. Out of everyone on the planet, only one person had spent the past few years with enough time around Itachi to be able to actually read him. Deidara and Sasuke couldn't see it, but he could. Kisame could.

Kisame saw hope.

Kisame wasn't sure what he felt about Itachi. It certainly wasn't a romantic feeling, and it wasn't quite familial either. Not parental enough for father and son, not informal enough for an uncle and nephew, and only the gods knew what Itachi considered brotherhood if this twisted and broken mockery of a once beautiful relationship was all he had left.

They were comrades, officially. Unofficially, they were… friends, he supposed. Close friends.

Best friends.

They had no one else, really. Sure, the rest of Akatsuki could flit around, but they were casual friends. They were acquaintances at worst, or somehow worming their way into the strange duo's lives the way Deidara had, but there was still something different about the link between Itachi and Kisame. Something strong, something that couldn't quite be named, but it was there.

There weren't any romantic or sexual feelings between the two, but Kisame felt that if he had to spend his life with one other person, and he was told to choose right now, it would be Itachi. (1)

Whatever the case may have been, Kisame could honestly say that he'd seen a wider range of emotions, post-massacre, anyway, on Itachi's face than anyone else. He could also honestly say that he'd never seen this one before.

Hope.

Not a mild, childish, detached hope, such as hoping that they'd find a nice dango shop in the next town. Not an uncaring hope, such as while gambling, though Itachi rarely did that anyway. Not any kind of simplistic hope, but a raw, needy desire for acceptance and forgiveness that was just now being given its first glancing ray of sunshine after a long, cold, dark winter.

And while it wasn't exactly a good feeling for Kisame to know that he had never seen this on his partner's face before, he felt something warm and caring that he'd thought he'd killed back in Kiri bubble up and strike true at knowing that Itachi would finally stop hating himself now.

"I can forgive you, Itachi. I _do _forgive you, just… just stop this tired act. Stop killing yourself for something that will never work. Stop living like the world is on your shoulders. Stop being such a goddamn fool and just _listen_ to me for once." Sasuke reached up to rub at his eyes, an action that no one commented on. When he looked back up, the Sharingan was gone. "You're supposed to be the smart one, Aniki. I'm the little brother that's supposed to look up to you."

No one was quite sure who made the first move. No one was quite sure whether Itachi stepped and tripped, or if they were already standing quite so close, or if Sasuke just reached out and pulled on Itachi's clothes again, but it happened.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the Uchiha brothers were hugging, and for the first time in far longer, their tears were those of happiness.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Wow, so, um… heavy chapter. Not as much Deidara, but I think we can let that slide this once, because… wow. I wrote that far too quickly once I got into it. It's still short, but… wow. And for those of you who are hoping or worrying, I don't ship anything incestuous, so stop squealing.**

**And Kisame focus, yay! Which reminds me:**

**That (1) was there for me to explain something:**

**I had no idea where I was going when I first started writing that little spiel into Kisame's consciousness. I just started and then kept going, rambling on until I realized where I'd gotten: heterosexual life partners. Basically, two people of the same sex/gender (we'll leave that part open to interpretation), who aren't interested in one another sexually or romantically, but are still as close or closer to each other than most married couples. A bromance on steroids, if you really want to take it that way.**

**Right, so, announcements! There is a poll on my profile, and I urge you to go vote, since you'll get to choose which story I work on after this. Here's a hint, though: you can vote for three of them, but you'll get a better deal out of things if I get more normal votes than "upgrade" ones.**

**There's still a contest going on for my stories over at dA, so go check that out if you want to win a nifty prize or two.**

**And I've recently started coming up across stories with strange similarities to my own. Not GC, but others. In one of the cases (there was someone who was 'inspired' by RaH, but was too young to understand a few common courtesies they should have followed), the matter was addressed and resolved easily, but the rest are a bit harder to pin down as to whether they are actual copycats or just unfortunate comparisons. Like the story I found that had all nine Jinchuuriki travel back in time. This plot point was, for them, introduced in April of this year. Guess who wrote a story based on that exact idea back in October?**

**I'll leave well enough alone for now, but if you guys see someone writing something that seems way too much like one of my stories for me to feel completely comfortable with it, please tell me so I can investigate for myself.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	52. Analysis

"_What about [Name]? Would you consider her Latino?"  
"No, she hasn't killed enough people with a chainsaw yet."_

_- I don't even… basically, there's a girl from Cabo, and we tease her a lot because of it, even though she easily passes for a preppy white girl (or perhaps due to that reason). Of course, the usual guy has no sense of where the line lies and decided to answer my history teacher like… that._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: A little low-key, not-quite-filler, less intense stuff to calm down before the next arc. Not that the second half really counts for that…**

o.o.o.o.o

"Well, that went… better than expected, un." Deidara rubbed her temples. "Listen, I'm tired, so can you get them in their rooms or whatever? Just remember to put Sasuke in the same room as Juugo, and we'll be good."

"Juugo?" Kisame looked down at her out of the corner of his eye.

Deidara shrugged. "Really tall guy with orange hair. He goes nuts sometimes, un, and Little Red Eyes is the only one that can calm him down."

"Alright. I'll see what I can do." Kisame patted her on the shoulder. "You go get some rest, kid. I'll take care of it from here."

"Thanks, un." Deidara yawned and turned to leave. "I'll be in either my room or Hidan's, depending on whether Kakuzu kicks me out or not, un. See you in the morning, Kisame."

"See you, kid."

o.o.o.o.o

"He _proposed?_" Konan stared at Deidara's hand. "When did this happen?"

Deidara shrugged, breakfast halfway to his mouth. "A few weeks ago, I guess. Why, un?"

Konan's eyes narrowed. "And Tobi knew?"

"Well… yeah, I guess, un."

"Do you know why he didn't tell me?" Konan folded her arms, and Deidara was suddenly quite glad that he wasn't going to be the subject of her ire today.

Deidara shook his head. "Not a clue, un."

Konan frowned for several moments, and then seemed to decide that Tobi and his punishment could wait a while longer. She sat down in the chair next to Deidara, doing her level best to ignore the nausea-inducing scent of his ostensibly normal breakfast, and turned to him with a grin. "Well? Tell me how it went."

Deidara resisted the urge to groan. Could she have done this some time when he really felt like gushing? Like, you know, when he was actually in girl mode?

o.o.o.o.o

TenTen was torn, once again, between "these are dangerous missing-nin" and "look at all sharp, shiny, pointy, poisonous and explodey, dangerous things!"

TenTen was often in such a dilemma these days.

Like when it came to Suigetsu. Quite frankly, she didn't much like him, especially given his personality. On the other hand… he had a large, dangerous, shiny, _self-repairing_ sword, one that used to belong to the Seven Swordsmen. Of course, by constantly staring at the thing, she ended up drawing him into a conversation on the one subject where neither would annoy the other. Of course, this subject was weaponry.

Obviously.

It was the same with Sasuke and his sword, though she still avoided him, and she occasionally got a rather scary glint in her eye when Juugo showed one of his transformations.

Now, standing here in Sasori and Deidara's room, the puppet workshop clearly visible from her position, and Deidara standing at her back with a warning hand on her shoulder, she was in that same position.

She didn't necessarily like the people, or at least feel comfortable with them, but… the _weapons_. There were things here that she'd never seen, and she had a feeling that she could enjoy herself here for _weeks_ if left alone to look around here.

"Prove you know what you're doing, and you can try to train with some of the things here, un, provided Danna is also here." Deidara said after several seconds of watching her fidget and stare longingly at the many blades and other weapons, causing TenTen to freeze, her eyes bulging slightly.

"Brat, I didn't ag—" Sasori muttered, but was cut off.

"Sh…" Deidara held up a finger in his partner's direction. "Let's see what she does, un."

"I-I can touch these?" TenTen's voice was hushed.

Deidara raised an eyebrow. "Well, yeah. That's what I just said, un. Just prove that you know enough to not get on Danna's nerves due to ignorance, and you—"

He was cut off by TenTen's excited squeal as she rushed forward and grabbed a nondescript blade from one of Sasori's many swords.

"Kusa-made, right? Though there's some Taki influence on the guard, but they're so similar that it doesn't _really_ change much, so it's not unwieldy as a result; it's a little unbalanced, though, so you'd need a pretty strong grip and wrist to carry it, more than a normal daito. And the sheath is normal Kusa brand, but its coloring is strange… did you make it yourself? Kusa brand sheaths are normally a greyer brown than this, which is too reddish to actually be a Kusa sheath." TenTen looked up at Sasori, actually waiting for an answer.

"…No." Sasori stared at her in slight consternation. TenTen had actually analyzed the basics of the blade far more quickly than he'd expected. He held up a hand before she rushed off after putting the sword back, and reached over to pluck a standard Konoha ANBU tanto from the wall with his chakra strings, a blade that had been modeled after the one he'd seen Itachi use during the boy's first years in Akatsuki. As common as the tanto was in Konoha, Sasori had no doubts that the girl had handled one before.

Sasori held the sword out to TenTen, handle first. "Show me what you can do."

TenTen blinked. "Wait, what?"

She got her answer in less than a second as a vaguely female puppet attacked her with a Chinese Broadsword, forcing her to defend herself. Sasori watched with a critical eye as he controlled the recent Kumo-nin puppet with one hand, and motioned Deidara closer. "Bring Kisame."

Deidara pursed his lips. "You want to analyze her sword skills, un?"

Sasori shook his head, and Deidara thought he saw a hint of a smile on his face. "No. I want to see her analyze Samehada."

o.o.o.o.o

Hyuuga Hiashi was currently one of the highest ranking authorities in the village. He normally ranked quite highly anyway, but the current circumstances put him at the most authority and power barring Danzo and the Sandaime's old teammates, as were several other clan heads. Tsunade was gone, and nearly at the Kage Summit, based on average travel times, with Shikaku and Jiraiya, crippled though he may have been, following along as her guards. Tsunade had spent some time deciding between Shikaku, Tsume, and Hiashi himself for her second guard, but eventually chosen Shikaku for his demeanor and long distance attacks. Jiraiya's position as one of her guards had been automatic, of course.

Of course, Hiashi was also quite worried at the moment. It wasn't just that his daughter, his heir, was out on a mission that was bound to put her in the path of harm of at least two _S-rank nukenin_, and for the second time, at that. It wasn't just that many of the most powerful and talented shinobi of Konoha were currently anywhere _but_ Konoha. It wasn't that the village had apparently earned the ire of Akatsuki for some reason or another. It was mostly the same worry that had been occupying him for the past month and a half, the worry over his nephew, presumably taken as a hostage or prisoner, and of an S-rank, the very ones that Hinata was on a mission to fight, at that.

"Hiashi-sama!"

Hiashi turned around, eyes on the Branch House messenger, Ko. The man was kneeling on the floor, head down, but Hiashi took it in stride. "Yes?"

"Hinata-sama has returned, and is currently in the hospital. She has requested an immediate audience!" Ko didn't look up, but the urgency was clear in his voice, clear to a level that should have been unacceptable in a Hyuuga.

Hiashi stood stiffly for several seconds, and then nodded stiffly. "Rise, and take me to her."

"Hai, Hiashi-sama!" Ko stood and saluted, immediately turning to lead Hiashi to Hinata's exact room at the hospital.

Hinata was awake when they arrived, and alone in her room. She looked up as Hiashi came in, her eyes lighting up, but there was something anxious in her eyes. There was a wrinkled piece of paper in Hinata's hands, one that had obviously been read by her man times. Hiashi quickly dismissed Ko and asked for him to stay out in the hall until they were done speaking.

"Hinata. How severe are your injuries?" Shinobi or not, he was a father, one that had only recently had begun to get along with his children. Hiash's first priority was Hinata's health.

"I'm fine," Hinata waved the question away, hurrying the conversation along. Hiashi didn't react to the out-of-character action, but he would realize what the cause was only seconds later. "I have a letter from Neji. He slipped it to me during some of the confusion of the fight, and… father, you _have_ to read it. This… this letter could change everything."

Hiashi took the letter, stoic.

He left the room fifteen minutes later to speak to Danzo and the elders, anything but.

o.o.o.o.o

When morning came, Hiashi was ready to leave the village with Inuzuka Tsume, and the two members of the unsuccessful rescue squad that had returned completely unscathed and weren't needed in the village, Hatake Kakashi and Uzumaki Naruto. They were already prepared to leave, and to do what needed to be done.

They would make their way to Iron Country as quickly as possible.

The Hokage needed to know this.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I'm not going to tell you how quickly I wrote this, because it would probably make you hate me for not posting earlier.**

**As always, enter the contests and vote in the poll.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	53. The Walls Are Closing In

"_And I was there in 2005, back when everyone was still panicking, and I was like oh, he's got a turban and a ceremonial dagger, and he's in charge. He's a pretty cool guy."_

_- The usual guy, talking about… the head of TSA at an airport in Washington DC. Irony… I think._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: One thing I find strange and a little funny about Jiraiya and Tsunade are that they're like an older reflection of Deidara and Hidan. It's not just hair color either, but even in temperament. To the world at large, Hidan is the insane psycho, while Deidara is the smug, calmer pyro; in private, however, Deidara's the one with the issues that Hidan helps out with. Jiraiya is, to the world, the perverted, hammy, free-spirited Sannin, while Tsunade is the one with the responsibility and the hat, the somewhat calmer one. In private, Tsunade's got her drinking and gambling problem, while Jiraiya's actually running the largest spy operation in the Elemental Nations, possibly barring Sasori's. There's other elements to it as well (I know I oversimplified all of them), but it's a funny comparison.**

o.o.o.o.o

Tsunade sighed as she stood at the balcony of her room, looking out at the snow-covered landscape of the Land of Iron. There were few buildings that allowed such a view, due to the cost of heating the buildings that weren't airtight everywhere but the entrance, but as a Kage, Tsunade had been given one of the most expensive rooms in the best hotel the capital of the country had to offer.

Tsunade had actually been one of the first Kage to arrive, preceded only by Ei, the one who had called the meeting in the first place.

She felt an arm wrap itself around her shoulder, and leaned to the side against the body it was attached to. Technically, the two rooms that Tsunade had been given were supposed to be split with her in one and her guards in the adjoining one. Tsunade had decided against that, however, putting Shikaku in the guard room on his own, and allowing Jiraiya into her room with her.

It was a long time in coming, but Jiraiya had finally won his teammate's heart. Tsuande had been plenty prepared to continue blocking his advances, but the event that had cost Jiraiya an arm, and nearly cost both him and Naruto their lives, had brought Dan's death to the forefront of her mind again. Tsunade had been struggling with her feelings regarding Jiraiya for years, trying to decide just what she felt for him, something that she should have been much more experienced in, given her age. With Jiraiya's closest brush with death yet, Tsunade had come too close to losing yet another of her loved ones, and that was the last straw. She decided that she'd played it safe, regarding Jiraiya, for far too long, and took the plunge.

"Tsunade-hime? Are you alright?" Jiraiya squeezed her shoulder, questioning. He would have reached down to grab her hand with his free arm, but he no long had that option.

"I won." Tsunade pulled a thin wad of ryo from her pocket. "I was planning on starting with the small games, work my way up and stop before I got too far, but… on the first game, I won. I didn't win big, but…"

"You're scared something's going to go wrong." Jiraiya surmised. "This is a meeting between the five Kage, about a group of international terrorists, all of whom are S-rank. I'd be surprised if nothing went wrong, hime."

"I know, but… I was _already_ expecting that. To win that early on, even if it's not much, it's a bad sign. Something bad is going to happen, something we aren't anticipating, and…" She shook her head. "I'm getting too old for this."

Jiraiya shrugged. "You're not as old as Onoki, or as old as sensei was when he took the seat back from Minato."

"Not by time, but my body… you, of all people, should know it's all just an illusion." Tsunade let her head fall to the side again, leaning in to Jiraiya's shoulder. "I have the body of a woman a time and a half my age."

"You're fine." Jiraiya assured her. "You're no worse off than me, right?"

Tsunade sighed again, looking out over the snow. "I suppose…"

"You suppose nothing. You know. You're Tsunade of the Sannin, the greatest medic of the age and the strongest woman to walk this earth." He paused, and then added on a less complimentary title with a leer. "You're also the Legendary Sucker, and—"

Tsunade's elbow dug into his ribs. "Don't make me regret taking you up on your offer, Jiraiya."

The man chuckled, pulling his arm off of Tsunade's shoulder to rub at the spot on his ribs that was now sore. "I know, I know." His face grew more somber. "But Tsunade…"

"What?" She looked up at him, searching his face for a hint about just what was such a problem now.

"You said you'd cut back on the gambling if I stopped peeping." He didn't move his eyes from hers. "And yet you—"

"I told you, I was planning on stopping before I got in over my head." Tsunade grumbled. "Just a few games…"

"Tsunade. Hime. Look at me." Jiraiya reached out to grab her face by the chin, staring straight at her eyes. "We both made the promises. Both of us are cutting back on sake, no more than one drink a day. I could keep writing Icha Icha if I stopped stalking bathhouses. You could enter the lottery, but _no other gambling_."

"I _know_, Jiraiya. I'm not some errant child for you to scold." Tsunade turned away from him.

"Hime… we're doing this for each other's good. You need to stop relying on your gambling, and I guess I need to stop with the perverted stuff. We're each watching out to make sure neither of us lands back on those crutches, those addictions again." He wrapped an arm around her from behind. "I don't want to see you turn into what you were after you left Konoha ever again, Tsunade."

"…I know, Jiraiya, but it's just—"

A knock from the room's door interrupted them. Tsunade turned and strode to the door, opening it with a slight glare already on her face. "What is it, Shikaku?"

"Hokage-sama." He looked over her shoulder. "Jiraiya-sama. The five Kage are all here. A letter was delivered to me, so as to tell you personally, that the meeting will occur tomorrow."

Tsunade nodded. "Is that all?"

Shikaku paused, and then shook his head. "No. No, it isn't. There was a call from an outpost, and we were informed that a team from Konoha is on its way here."

The lone female of the Sannin frowned. "So? Is there anything special about the team?"

"It consists of Hyuuga Hiashi, Inuzuka Tsume, Hatake Kakashi, and Uzumaki Naruto." Shikaku spoke crisply when he was on duty, as sharp contrast to the mumble that most Nara men spoke with. "Hyuuga Hiashi was the one that was leading the team, and purportedly claimed to have a letter that his nephew had managed to slip to his daughter during the… botched rescue mission." Shikaku's face soured visibly at the end, but it was to be expected, considering who was supposed to be rescued.

Tsunade nodded. "When will they arrive?"

"Within the next four to five hours, Hokage-sama." Shikaku replied. "The samurai have requested that you meet him personally at the gates for confirmation of his identity, as well as the rest of the team."

"I see. You are dismissed, Nara."

o.o.o.o.o

Kakuzu was not used to the insistent questioning about his kinjutsu that stemmed from the redheaded girl. Most people were prone to avoiding him, if only to avoid dying, but this girl insisted on talking to him about his techniques for no visible reason.

It was strange. Very strange.

The strangest part was probably that he didn't really mind all that much. She generally left when he started to get annoyed, a fact that he assumed was tied to her ability to sense chakra, and probably emotions as a result. Otherwise, she questioned him on his kinjutsu, his ability to stitch himself and others back together, and then started in on other questions that he'd previously only expected someone like Orochimaru to ask.

Then again, the girl had spent several years working under the snake…

o.o.o.o.o

Kisame found himself a point of common interest for four of the kids that Deidara had dragged along, two of the minions and two of the hostages.

Well, to be fair, Juugo and Shika-chan were more interested in Maia than they were in Kisame himself. Or rather, Juugo was interested in _all_ animals, and Maia was interested in Shika-chan, who didn't protest the cat's small obsession after Deidara had mentioned how cute she found it.

TenTen and Suigetsu, though? Those two were interested in both Kisame _and_ one of Kisame's belongings, namely, Samehada.

He really should have seen it coming.

Honestly, both of them looked almost hungry when they stared at the poor living sword.

Poor Samehada-chan. She tried to be such a good girl for her master, and look where it landed her.

o.o.o.o.o

Sasuke passed by the room that he was supposed to be sharing with the rest of Taka. Technically, he _was_ sharing it with them, but he tried to get out of the situation.

Many times.

His ploys didn't work very well.

He blamed Hidan and Deidara.

The rationality was getting to him.

However, to return to the subject at hand, it is worth noting that Sasuke heard something as he passed the door, and in curiosity, backtracked to open the door and investigate.

He was rather bored at the time, and didn't really have anything better to do.

(Right…)

The door opened on an ostensibly normal scene. Karin was on one of the beds, sitting cross-legged, and was examining a scroll. She looked up sharply when Sasuke made his way in. "Sasuke-kun!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Karin. What are you doing?"

Karin paused for a second, glancing back down at the scroll, and then back at him. "Come sit over here. I was talking to… Obito? Tobi? Whatever his name was, he told me a story about the Rikudo Sennin, and I talked to Pein-sama about it as well, for confirmation. It was… interesting."

Sasuke motioned for her to continue as he walked over to sit next to her, though not close enough for her to 'accidentally' touch him. It wasn't that he was really all that interested, but whatever Obito said was usually somewhat important, so he might as well listen for a while.

"The Rikudo Sennin had two sons. One of them was the ancestor of the Uchiha clan, and the other was the ancestor of the Senju." Karin picked up a scroll that Sasuke hadn't seen earlier, as it had been hidden behind her leg. She opened it, but Sasuke could understand only half of what was written, if that. "I don't expect you to know what this says, since you never really studied biology past whatever was taught to you in the Academy, but I've been working on it for a few days. Obito told me that if there was interbreeding between a Senju and an Uchiha, the result would be a Rinnegan. I still haven't pinpointed exactly how it works, but—"

"Karin." Sasuke held up a hand. "How did you get samples?"

"Sasori apparently raided several of Orochimaru's bases after you took him out. I talked my way into looking over the research, and…" Karin sighed. "I talked to Pein as well, and he doesn't really know where his parents were from, but his real body has the same hair as all Uzumaki… or most, anyway. I've seen your teammate."

"Naruto?" Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "You're saying that he only has the name, then?"

"No." Karin's voice was a little darker. "Even a Jinchuuriki couldn't survive some of the things he's been through. Your stories, random nukenin I've met, old test subjects… I've heard enough. Only an Uzumaki, a _Jinchuuriki _Uzumaki, could survive that Chidori that you said you put through his heart. Not to mention how all the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki have been of the clan…"

"And you know this… how?" Sasuke wasn't used to not knowing things like this. He should have known more about Karin, given how much time he'd spent in her company, travelling over the past several months as they had. However, he honestly hadn't cared for most of that time, and so knew far less than he should have. What information he did have was being… challenged. He had a feeling that he was missing something big.

"My parents told me. As for how I know, well…" Karin reached up to pick at her hair, holding out a lock towards Sasuke and dangling it a foot from his face. "Uzumaki hair had a habit of being an extremely vivid red, you know?"

Sasuke blinked. "You're an Uzumaki." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

"And so is… Pein?"

"Mm-hm." Karin nodded. "We didn't know how many had made it after the destruction of the island before I was born. For all they knew, I might've been the last, the youngest, Uzumaki left. They were shinobi anyway, so they knew they probably wouldn't last long. They were right about that. Did you know that the Shodai Hokage's wife was an Uzumaki?"

Sasuke shook his head. He hadn't paid much attention to history, not more than he needed to pass and then forget what wasn't relevant to the Uchiha.

"Uzumaki Mito. She was powerful, I hear. Anyway, the scroll I was looking at was a recent family tree regarding the Uzumaki and the Senju. Take a look." Karin held out the scroll, urging Sasuke to at least glance over it.

"…Which one is which?" He honestly couldn't tell. "And… where does one end and the next begin?"

Karin shrugged, taking the scroll back. "The Senju and the Uzumaki clans were close. Really close. Intermarrying happened a lot."

"So most Uzumaki have Senju blood, and most Senju have Uzumaki blood?" Sasuke clarified, an amused and slightly exasperated smile beginning to grow on his face.

"Yes."

"You have Senju blood."

"Diluted, but yes."

"…Karin, promising me Rinnegan super babies isn't going to make me want to sleep with you." Sasuke finally got to the heart of this issue.

Karin was silent. Her head was turned away from Sasuke, but he could still see the embarrassed blush on her face. At least, he hoped it was just from embarrassment. He didn't want to think about what else could have caused Karin to blush _now_, as opposed to any other part of the conversation.

"Was it all true, though?" Whether it was just a ploy to get into his pants or not, Karin had explained some things that were actually quite interesting.

"Well, yes. Almost all of it."

"Almost?" Sasuke sent her a sidelong look as he leaned back on the bed, ready to just fall and lay there for a while.

"I still don't know which exact genes cause the Rinnegan, so I _would_ still have to do some research to figure out whether an Uzumaki-Uchiha child would have it." Karin explained. "It's complicated."

"Right…" Sasuke practically drawled. Honestly, he was far more relaxed in the Akatsuki base, far more laidback, than he had been in years. It was… nice, he supposed. It was even a little ironic, given that the base was _supposedly_ a den of scum and villainy.

"So, um, Sasuke-kun…" Karin was facing him again, the blush in full force.

Sasuke held up a hand. "No."

Karin deflated, crestfallen, but she had been expecting it.

"This was a h*** of a lot more subtle than anything else you've tried, though. I'll give you that much." Sasuke eyed her for a second, and then looked back at the scrolls. He stood up, stretched, and then spoke over his shoulder in a well-calculated move. "Tell you what. If we both manage to survive the coming s***storm, if everything Deidara and Hidan said is true, if the world _doesn't end_ and we help them somehow fix all the things that they told us were wrong with it… I'll give you a shot."

Karin's mouth fell open as Sasuke walked out of the room.

He was smirking.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I don't care what you ship. This story isn't about what Kishimoto ships. It isn't about what I ship. It isn't about what you ship. When it comes to shipping, I'm of the opinion that **_**any**_** ship can be beautiful, if just put in the right circumstances. If JiraTsu happened, it happened. If SasuKarin eventually happens… well, that just means you got a happy ending, not a monumental screw-up where everyone dies because Kami failed at life.**

**Remember to vote in the pole, and remember to enter the contests~!**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenis.**


	54. Crashing a Party! Or a Kage Summit

"_And the Palestinians were just like: Oh, let's leave. Newspapers the next day: __In an Ironic Twist, Jews Literally Worse than Hitler__."_

_- I'm almost positive that the usual guy is going to say the wrong thing to the wrong person someday and just get punched in the face by someone much, much bigger than him. Please note that any quotes I use that originate from him do __not__ represent my own views and opinions. Most don't even represent his, since he's quite proficient in the use of sarcasm._

o.o.o.o.o

"Deidara, are you _sure_ about this?" Konan questioned as she prepared to leave, just like… well, everyone else in the base bar Nagato, who was sending the Deva Path in his stead.

"Konan, we've been over the plan dozens of times, un. We _know_ the ways this could go, and we've done everything possible to prevent it from turning into a battleground, un. We've even got Tobi on standby to get you out of there, because… well…" Deidara motioned toward the woman's stomach.

"Because I'm pregnant." Konan deadpanned. "You don't have to tiptoe around the word, Deidara."

The blonde man shrugged. "Yeah, I know. Still, it's a little…" He trailed off and then turned around. "Alright! Hostages and henchmen, over there! You're coming in last!"

"Wait, henchmen?" Suigetsu made a face, pointing at Deidara. "I thought we were supposed to be minions!"

Deidara blinked at him. "Wait, what, un?"

"'Minions' sounds cooler than henchmen. 'Henchmen' makes you sound like a B-movie villain. 'Minions' makes it sound like you're making fun of the entire concept." Suigetsu folded his arms and nodded.

"But… then there's not alliteration." Deidara pointed out. "Hostages and henchmen. They both start with 'h.'"

"Moving on…" Sasori flicked the back of Deidara's head with Hiruko's shiny new tail, while Karin took care of doing the same to Suigetsu… just not as lightly.

"We already know the plan, un." Deidara mumbled. "No point in going over it _again_. With as many people as we have, and as little time, it's just… pointless, un."

"Perhaps, but—" Itachi began, but was cut off as Zetsu came up from the floor.

"We're good to go." He grinned at them all. "**The Kage Summit just started, and guess what just showed up to 'help'?**"

"What?" Pein demanded, ripple-eyes narrowing.

A chuckle caught everyone's attention, drawing gazes toward Tobi, the noise's originator. "Oh, this is going to be fun. Apparently, a four man team came in from Konoha to deliver a message to the Hokage."

"And just who is on the team?" Pein prompted, impatient.

"Well… Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi, Inuzuka Tsume, and…" Tobi's head turned towards Neji. "A certain Hyuuga Hiashi…"

Neji met his gaze, unflinching. "I suppose he got the message as intended, then?"

"You're not even _trying_ to hide it?" Suigetsu was the one to speak, of course. There were few others in the room that would have spoken with quite those inflections and quite those words. Of those, some were unsurprised (those that knew Neji and those that had already discussed the situation), and that really only left Karin, who was… busy.

What was she busy with? Well… she may have been helping Sasori carry some gaseous paralytics from the nearby lab.

Honestly, she was the only one there that he could have actually trusted to know what to do with poison, given that she was the only other person there with medical training.

Yay…

"Of course not." Neji turned his blank eyes on Suigetsu. "They already knew of the letter. I saw them watching me as I handed it to my cousin, and I have little doubt that, should they feel the urge to, they could divine its contents for themselves."

Deidara shrugged. "Haven't bothered, really. It doesn't matter in the long run, un. Any information you've gotten from us has such a low chance of actually being debilitating that it barely matters, un. Most of it would actually help us with what we're doing today, so…"

"Ahem." Zetsu interrupted. "So, when should we go?"

All eyes turned to Pein. He was, after all, the undisputed leader.

"Fifteen minutes, and then interrupt. You already know what needs to be done after that." The orange head, one of two in the room, turned to Tobi. "And you know what to do until he interrupts."

"Aye-aye, captain!" Tobi gave a sloppy salute and giggled. "Tobi will do what he's supposed to do~!"

Several sighs were heard at that, but they were warranted. Deidara just chuckled, leaning back against Hidan's chest.

"Right… well, Tobi's going to start taking people to the Land of Iron, now!" Tobi clapped his hands, accented by a large amount of ominous thunder.

o.o.o.o.o

"…Hokage-sama?" Hiashi ventured, but Tsunade quickly snapped up a hand to silence him. Hiashi had been the only member of the four-man team to be allowed in, as there had nearly been complete chaos at the suggestion that such an imbalance of power be present in the room.

The entire Kage Summit had been paused due to the 'urgent news' that Hiashi had claimed to be bringing with him.

Jiraiya edged closer to the Hyuuga head, leaning in to whisper. "What's in the letter?"

Hiashi looked over, and then sighed slightly, knowing that the entire room would be listening in. "Neji slipped a letter to Hinata during the botched rescue mission. She then gave the letter to me when I came to visit her in the hospital, though there were obvious signs that she had read it over many times before. The letter contains… information on Akatsuki and some rather sensitive information regarding the Uchiha Massacre."

Jiraiya blinked, and then motioned with his remaining arm for Hiashi to continue, but the pale-eyed man shook his head. "The information on the massacre is the kind that I doubt the Hokage would allow me to disclose, and even I do not quite understand the full extent of the information regarding the Akatsuki."

Jiraiya frowned, disgruntled, but didn't press the issue.

Tsunade sighed and put the paper down, massaging her temples. "D*mn it. God f**king d*mn it. I need some sake."

"No, you don't." Jiriaya frowned at her. "What the h*ll could that letter hold if you're reacting like—"

"Just read it, Jiraiya." Tsunade ground out. "Just read it and tell me that it's not bad. F**k, I'm going to _kill_ Danzo when we get back to Konoha."

"Danzo?" Jiraiya made a face as he picked the paper up, eyes skimming over the opening greetings that Neji had scripted out to Hinata. "Is there anything here that's confidential?"

"Keep the massacre stuff under wraps, but the rest is fine to read aloud."

Jiraiya nodded, and then finally reached the part that he figured was relevant. He paled, the further he read, and his fist tightened. There were only three other people that had read this, those three being Tsunade, Hiashi, and Hinata, but how the information had gotten to Neji, the writer, in the first place was… horrifying to consider.

His gaze skipped down, hitting the point where the information on the Akatsuki began.

Gods.

The Rikudo Sennin.

The Juubi.

A dimensional barrier.

…Oh, h*ll.

He read it out slowly, second-guessing every word as though he didn't want to believe what he was reading, as though he _wanted_ to make a mistake to prove that it just wasn't true.

There was dead silence when he'd finished.

"I refuse to believe it." Onoki finally said. "Your informant must have made a mistake, or be lying, or whoever gave them the information was lying."

"My nephew would not lie, nor would he make an error." Hiashi spoke stiffly. "And beyond that, he has been trained to detect lies through histrionic movements. I assure you that the information is—"

"And if the person he got the information from was wrong, but convinced that they were telling the truth? What then?" Onoki challenged. "This tale is outrageous."

Tsunade glared over at Onoki, but she understood where he was coming from. Still…

"We can't just dismiss this out of hand." Mei spoke softly on those words, her eyes tracking the room to note that all the attention was focused on her, and then continued, louder. "This is the closest we've had to a true lead. This boy may not have been a true inside man, but he's the first person any village has had prolonged contact with the organization while remaining loyal to his village and managing to feed information back. It may not _sound_ plausible, but it's better than any other information we've had yet."

"No." Tsunade whispered. "If the rest of the letter is true, then one of the other members may have remained loyal to Konoha, but been under such a deep cover that no one knew…" Her face grew angry, and her next words were spoken in a growl. "And of the four that did know, one is dead, and the rest apparently did _not_ see fit to inform me of that fact."

Everyone in the room looked around uneasily. A fight had not broken out yet, but with such information on the table, there was such tension that one could easily happen.

A cough broke the silence, coming from Gaara. All eyes turned to him, while he himself turned to face Ei. "Raikage-dono, you claimed that your brother was on… _decent_ terms with his bijuu, correct?"

The Raikage's face soured, but he nodded. "Yeah, he was. But he can't ask Gyuuki for confirmation, seeing as he's _dead_."

Gaara nodded, unperturbed. "A pity, that, but the situation may still be salvageable. There is still one remaining Jinchuuriki, and if he were on similarly good terms with his one bijuu, we may be able to confirm it in that manner."

"Too risky." Ei immediately dismissed it. "It would involve a long travel, and I'm sure as h*ll not letting these Akatsuki b****rds finish what they started. That Jinchuuriki is staying under guard twenty-four seven."

"My apologies, Raikage-dono, but that is not your decision to make." Tsunade spoke with narrowed eyes and through gritted teeth. "While you may refuse us the rights to the methods you have used to empower your own village's Jinchuuriki before, you do not have the right to decide what happens to _my_ shinobi."

"The h*ll I don't! This whole situation is something we're all subject to, not just one godd*mn village!" Ei stood up, smashing a fist down onto his table.

"Oh, that looked painful. Poor desk…" A voice carried down from the ceiling, but there was no one there.

"Who's there?" Various people called out, with various phrasing and various levels of civility, but only a voice answered, not a face.

"**Well, that's rude. Isn't is only polite to introduce yourself first?**"

The guards began powering up their attacks, even as the Kage themselves, along with Mifune, began to prepare for battle as well… just in case.

"Relax…" The first voice soothed. "We're not here to fight. **In fact, we're barely even here to talk. We just came to say…**"

A plant slammed up out of the ground, opening to show a dichromatic man, the white half of which looked elated.

"_Hallo~!"_

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: And… well. You know what was in the letter (pretty much everything except the fact that Shikamaru became Shika-chan), and we just got to what could possibly be the most intense person-to-person confrontation in the story… or, knowing me, completely underwhelming.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	55. I Am Never Letting You Go!

"_Yeah, there was, like, a mountain lion in a tree with a gun."_

_- People amalgamating the rumors about why we had a Code 99._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Just a quick warning to you all: Kurotsuchi ruins everything. All the imposing terror of the Akatsuki just goes out the window when she gets involved. I wasn't really a fan or a hater of her before writing this chapter, but now I want to keep writing her, because the way I did this first time was hilarious.**

o.o.o.o.o

No one was really quite sure what to do. The plant man had assured them that he wasn't planning on hurting anyone, and actually seemed rather excited to be there. On the other hand, he had an Akatsuki cloak, and had just crashed a Kage summit in a supposedly secure room.

"Ne, ne, Tobi's here too!" A man's head popped out of the ceiling like it didn't exist, waving wildly at them all, his voice high and grating. "Tobi came because Tobi has to follow Zetsu, and Pein told Tobi to do it, and Tobi's a good boy, so he did what he was supposed to do!"

There was a long, long pause after that, broken only by the snickering from the man in the ground.

"What the h*ll are you doing here?" Ei demanded, lightning starting to arc out around his body.

"That's a complicated question." The dark, gravelly, somewhat amused voice rang out through the cavern as a large shape, low to the ground, crawled in from the ceiling of one of the entry tunnels.

"With a complicated answer." Another voice continued the line, still deeper than the first, as a tall figure stepped out of the shadows, face hidden by a strange mask, barring the Christmas-colored eyes.

"But most of what we want," A man, taller still, stepped in. He was not wearing a mask, unlike the first two, and his blue skin was clearly visible, as was his inhumanly sharp smile.

"Is quite simple." A slighter man, rather effeminate, entered from directly behind the blue man, red and black eyes spinning.

"What we f**king want," The man that stepped out from behind the man with the dusky skin was pale in contrast, though his eyes and hair were what completed the ghostly picture, manic grin gleaming.

"Is just to talk, un." A blonde head popped up to rest from behind the crouched figure with the tail, a lazy grin across his(?) face.

There was silence for several seconds more, the masked man in the ceiling humming softly, and then it broke.

It wasn't broken by a demand for an explanation. It wasn't broken by a deadly attack. It wasn't broken by any of the expected means.

It was broken by one of the Tsuchikage's guards leaping forward, slapping Deidara, and then pulling him into a hug as she yelled at him for being an idiot and leaving her.

(Within seconds, the Raikage also broke out of his stupor and loudly demanded for Kisame to die for what happened to his brother.)

"Erm, Kurotsuchi-chan, you should really—"

"Shut up! Do you have any idea what you leaving did to—"

"—could just _please_ let go, un, it's really uncomfortable, and I—"

(Kisame blocked the Raikage, and Itachi informed the large black man that Killer Bee was alive and well, if missing a tentacle.)

"—_years_ without even a letter to tell me you were okay, just the reports of hunter nin and—"

"—and I get that your angry, un, but it's not like I can just pick up and leave when—"

"—dealing with the stigma of having been your best friend? The most powerful nukenin Iwa's had in—"

(The Raikage stared until Itachi politely asked if he could sit back down to expedite the coming discussions.)

"—mean, it's not like I didn't miss you or anything, but did you seriously not move on, un? There must have been _someone_ you could have—"

"—absolutely _miserable_ and only my granddad as company, with your memory as a—"

"Would both of you just shut up?" A mass of black threads pulled the bickering almost-siblings apart, Kakuzu's angry voice cutting through the din with ease.

Sasori sighed, shaking his head. "Thank you. The brats were getting irritating."

"Dei…" Hidan laughed a bit. "All that tension we built up, and you two just kill the mood. We had this awesome s**t going, and you just break it off."

Deidara sent him a lidded stare. "Shut up, un."

"Shutting."

It was at this point that people finally began to react fully. Gaara, surprisingly, was the first to do so.

"Why are you truly here?" Gaara's eyes, as with everyone there, traced the room constantly, trying to find a leader to focus on. "You have mentioned that you wish to speak with us all, but not of what it is that you would like to speak of."

"First, tell me what the letter said, un, how many people know what it said, and… you know what, just let those people in from outside, un. I don't know about the Inuzuka, but the other two are probably relevant. Or they will be, un. I don't really care about when they show up, so long as we see them before we leave. Or before Tobi leaves, un. Whatever works best, I—" Deidara was suddenly cut off as a hand covered his mouth. He looked up at Hidan, who shrugged, seeming completely unapologetic.

"You're rambling." He explained.

Deidara rolled his eyes, gesturing to Hidan to move.

"Will someone get me down?" Kurotsuchi's voice loudly broke through the two's little 'moment.'

Kakuzu dropped her, though she landed lightly on her feet, as any shinobi worth their salt would.

Within the next second, she had her arms wrapped around one of Deidara's grip as tight as possible, a determined pout on her face.

"Um… what are you doing, un?"

"I am _not_ letting you ditch me again." Kurotsuchi glared at him. "I am not going to let you go until I am completely and utterly convinced that you're either never going away, or coming back as often as possible to see me again, Deidara-nii."

Deidara looked away from her, searching the faces in the room, both friend and foe, ally and enemy, for someone willing help him out. None of the people on the opposing side looked willing to help, and his own were either smirking or outright snickering at his predicament.

"Oi, oi, girly." Hidan poked Kurotsuchi in the shoulder, but stepped back and put his hands up in mock-surrender as she growled at him. "Relax, I just want to ask you a question."

"…What?" Kurotsuchi glared at him, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

"There was never anything… _romantic_ between you two, right?" Hidan awkwardly pointed from one to the other a few times. "I mean, I'm pretty sure Dei would've told me and all, but just to be sure…"

"No!" Kurotsuchi made a face as she denied the suggestion, even though she still refused to let go of her former best friend's arm. Deidara himself looked rather sickened. "We grew up together. He's like a brother, or a cousin, not… ugh!"

"Okay, good." Hidan grinned, though it didn't quite reach his eyes. "Just wanted to make sure my fiancé didn't have some crazy, stalker-type exes that were going to—"

"Fiancé?" Kurotsuchi spun Deidara around to face her. "When did this happen? Why wasn't I invited? D*mn it, Deidara-nii!"

"Enough!" Tsunade bellowed, standing up behind her desk. "I'm used to dealing with idiots that don't know when to quit and can't be serious when the situation calls for it, but this is getting ridiculous."

"I agree." It wasn't very easy to pinpoint who said it, considering that half the room had spoken at the same time, several Akatsuki members among the speakers. Of course, the fact that the Akatsuki members agreed, with varying levels of amusement, caused an uneasy tension to hang in the air, before Hidan just sighed and pointed to Hiashi.

"Oi, white-eyed oldie. The letter, what was in it, and how much do people here know?" When Hiashi didn't automatically answer, Hidan began to snap his fingers, impatient. "C'mon, we gotta know how much we need to cover for you all, how much you know and all that jazz."

Hiashi sent Hidan one of the patented Hyuuga glares, several levels beyond even Neji's, a Master Glare (only the Elders had better). In a rather clipped voice, he explained just what information had been shared, and obliquely mentioned what had been in the letter but been kept confidential.

Itachi's face had tightened slightly at that, but he held his composure, a fact that did not go unnoticed by most of the room. Behind him, two measured stares were meeting as Kisame and Mei sized each other up, having known each other of old. They had not been friends, nor had they been lovers, but they had known each other well enough, and there was a different history between the two. No expression crossed their faces, but that meant nothing to the experienced eye.

These two would have no qualms killing each other if the situation called for it, and they would do so quite gleefully, traitorous as they considered one another.

"Right…" Hidan drawled, rolling his head on his neck as he slung an arm around Deidara's shoulders, ignoring that Kurotsuchi was already clinging to one arm, and Tobi had a stranglehold on the other. "So… how much proof do you need from us to help out?"

Dead silence filled the room once more. It was quite a common phenomenon, really.

"What?" Mifune's quiet voice was the one to break through the silence.

"You heard me." Hidan wasn't impressed, letting his head fall to the side as a lazy, supposedly charming grin crossed his face. "You, me, everyone here, we're all headed for complete and utter destruction. You could help us save everyone… or deny that there's a problem and end up as nonexistent as Kakuzu's generosity."

Kakuzu took a moment to slap the back of Hidan's head. After a short glaring contest between the two, Hidan turned back to the room at large with his megawatt smile once again.

"You have no proof." Onoki grumbled, but a hand came up from Tsunade, asking for silence.

She stared down the various Akatsuki members, who were, by now, all standing together, a random Kurotsuchi standing in their midst, slightly disturbed. Tsunade spoke slowly, measured and controlled as Jiraiya, Shikaku, and Hiashi all gravitated to stand closer to her, fulfilling their position as guards, even though that had not been Hiashi's original post.

"You claim to wish for our goodwill and cooperation. However, you have not done anything to earn ours." Her eyes narrowed slightly, hands coming up to lace on the table in front of her. "You have hostages from my village, and I will be willing to listen if, and only if, you return them to us now, unharmed."

"Fine." Itachi was the one that spoke, and all eyes in the room swiveled to face him. "We expected as much, and have them ready for transport."

"And Uchiha Sasuke?" Jiraiya was the one that asked the question this time, suspicious and unwilling to cooperate with the men and women that had cost him his arm.

Itachi's eyes tightened imperceptibly. "My brother and his team are ready to come as well."

"However," Kakuzu's deep voice cut in. "We will also bring our leader and his right hand woman, as they wish to speak with you as well."

"And why are they not here?" Mei asked, head tilting as she stared at Deidara, a slightly predatory smirk on her face.

Seven hands and one wooden tail rose and pointed at the Konoha group. At the questioning looks from said group, Sasori elaborated. "They have dealt with Jiraiya of the Sannin before, and have some… grievances with him, and with Konoha as a whole, I suppose."

"We've got a letter." Kisame offered, pulling a paper out of his cloak pocket. "It's from both of them, if you're curious. They wanted to warn you so that you didn't get a heart attack when you saw them."

Jiraiya stared suspiciously as the blue man set the envelope down on the table and slid it over to him, catching it with his single hand with a loud smack as it hit the wood. He glanced at Tsunade, silently asking her to open it, seeing as one normally needed two hands to do so. She obliged silently, then handed him the letter, even as the rest of the room watched with bated breath.

They watched as Jiraiya's eyes grew wide.

They watched as his face grew pale.

They watched as his eyes began to shine with unshed tears.

They watched as the letter fell to the ground, as Jiraiya's knees shook and he leaned forward to hold himself up on the table, whispering denial to himself.

Tsunade took up the paper, worried.

Of course, some people don't like that kind of tension, and felt a little sorry for Jiraiya since everyone was focused on him, and so decided to cause a distraction.

"So…" Deidara pointed at Shikaku with the arm that had Tobi, even as he pasted a strained grin on his face, obviously a little uncomfortable with what he was about to say. "You wouldn't happen to be that Shikamaru kid's dad, un, right?"

Shikaku's eyes narrowed on Deidara. "I am. Why do you ask?"

"…Pfft." Hidan snorted, bringing up a hand to hide his face even as Deidara elbowed him.

"Don't laugh, un." Deidara hissed, and then turned back to Shikaku. "That's going to make things a little awkward, un."

Shikaku took a step forward. "What did you do to my son?"

Deidara brought his arms up in mock surrender with some difficulty. "Relax. It's reversible, technically painless, un, and only meant to embarrass, not hurt, the… victim." He shrugged, slipping on an abashed veneer. "To be fair, he did put Hidan through what's pretty much a fate worse than death, un, so I had a reason to be angry and want some revenge."

"_What did you do to my son?_" Shikaku demanded through grit teeth. Nara or no, all thoughts of laziness flew out the window at the thought that his son had been hurt.

"I turned him into a catgirl."

For the nth time that day, silence reigned. The wind was taken out of Shikaku's sails, and people focused on Deidara once more.

"And to think," Gaara broke it, this time, with a small, amused smirk on his face, barely visible. "He spent all that time talking about how women were, I believe, 'troublesome.' Temari certainly complained about it enough."

Shikaku finally broke through his shock. "You did _what?_"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: It's longer than normal, even if it doesn't feel that way. I'm sorry you didn't get your requested Shika-meeting (I know a lot of you were looking forward to it), but you get two chapters next week anyway, so it's not like you really have to wait all that long. Besides, you got Kurotsuchi!**

**Am I the only one that thinks Kurotsuchi and Sai look a lot alike?**

**No, but seriously. I've already dealt with one bone-headed reviewer today, so please don't make me even more annoyed by complaining about how slowly the story is moving.**

**As always, review, vote (hey, if you have a chance at deciding what I write next, and you like the look of one of my stories, go take that chance!), and enter my contests on dA. The prizes are absolutely lovely.**

**ALSO! I am writing Crowning Moment pages for GC on TvTropes, and I need you guys to tell me what should be on there. There are five categories that I want suggestions for:**

**Crowning Moment of Awesome  
Crowning Moment of Funny  
Crowning Moment of Heartwarming  
Tearjerker  
Nightmare Fuel  
**

**Suggestions should consist of short to medium-sized quotes or short paragraphs describing a scene. I'd like as many suggestions as possible, so do your best! And if you want to add a little something for the fridge page, that's fine by me!  
**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	56. Too Many Characters, Not Enough Time

_Teens in New York being told that there's a mountain lion outside the school: go the windows, see nothing, and panic.  
Teens in Colorado being told that there's a mountain lion outside the school: 'Hey, you wanna go catch it?'  
Moral of the story? There are a lot of farm kids at my school who regularly catch mountain lions and have them mounted on walls._

_- This is only a sort of quote. I've said this a lot, and the part about Colorado teens talking about catching it is based off of that exact thing happening during my sophomore year. A couple guys that I didn't know, probably older than me, were all talking about different ways to catch it. They weren't actually allowed outside to do the deed, but they talked like they'd apparently done it before. And I know from experience that kids in New York aren't quite so… blasé when it comes to wild animals._

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara cringed, though in a quite visibly fake manner, and pulled Hidan to stand in front of him, ignoring the taller man's squawk of surprise. "I turned him into a girl and then gave him cat features, un." He elaborated.

"You… you turned my _son_ into a catgirl." Shikaku's face was twitching quite visibly at this. Deidara would have pointed that out, but felt that it would really be a little too unfair to the man, given how much pressure he was already under.

"Tobi thinks it's time to go get people!" The man in the orange mask detached himself from Deidara's arm and gave a childish, cheery salute to the room at large before disappearing.

"Yes. Yes I did. I've done the same thing to myself plenty of times, un." Deidara smiled at the man, back on the ball, and no longer pretending to fear Shikaku. Deidara even stepped forward to stand with Hidan at his back. "And though I didn't go so far as to give cat features to the rest, an impromptu sex-change is a totally legitimate form of punishment for when they started to p*** me off, in my opinion."

"Most people do react rather badly to that." Zetsu nodded sagely, still not having moved from his position halfway through the middle of the floor.

"You mean to say that…" Hiashi began to speak, but then trailed off in a mildly horrified stupor as he suddenly realized what that meant for his nephew.

"Uh… you're probably the uncle that, what's-his-face, Neji mentioned, un, right?" Deidara pointed at Hiashi, quizzical, but then waved his own confusion aside. "Yeah, you probably are. Yes, he ended up irritating me enough to turn him into a girl, un, several times. So did Uchiha Sasuke. So did Hozuki Suigetsu. So did Sai, un, and I'm not sure he actually understood what he was doing wrong some of those times. Juugo and the girls didn't, though, un." Deidara had begun rambling once he'd gotten to Sai, his gaze drifting to the ceiling in remembrance, and seemed oblivious to the fact that people were now staring at him in confusion. "Juugo's just a good guy naturally, un, 'cept those pesky homicidal moments, but those aren't his fault, and TenTen was too scared or something to bother irritating me, un. Karin actually _did_ manage to p*** me off a few times, but she was too useful to risk alienating at the time, un. Actually, I think part of why Sai got turned so many times was because he didn't understand that the sex-change was supposed to be a punishment, un. I think it just confused him, more than anything else."

He trailed off, leaning back against Hidan as though the man was a wall.

"Dei."

"Hm?" Deidara craned his head back to look at Hidan. "What?"

"You're rambling again." Hidan slipped his arms around Deidara's waist, having a little trouble with forcing his right arm between Deidara's side and Kurotsuchi.

"Yeah, yeah…"

Having had enough of Deidara's insistence on mentally disturbing the original occupants of the room, Sasori turned to Zetsu, since Kakuzu was too busy talking to Itachi and Kisame to take control at the moment. "See if you can send in the… _team_ outside, Zetsu. It seems that the delegation from Konoha is rather occupied at the moment."

"No." Gaara's voice cut across the room before Zetsu could disappear. He seemed unperturbed by the many gazes that turned to him. "Allow it to be someone they know and fairly trust. As it would be unwise to allow Hokage-dono to leave, and the rest of the group from Konoha would be appreciated to provide some semblance of security to the returning hostages, I propose to allow one of my guards to let in Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi, and… I believe her name was Inuzuka Tsume?"

A stiff nod from Hiashi confirmed the name, and Gaara's gaze turned to track over the Akatsuki members, lingering on Sasori and Zetsu. When no answer was forthcoming other than a shrug from Zetsu, he turned and motioned for Kankuro to go. The young man with the face paint was visibly unhappy with the orders, but left anyway.

The second that Kankuro was gone, Tobi swirled into the room with, not the hostages, but Taka.

There was silence for several seconds as the four teens stumbled to their feet, and Tobi left again.

Juugo, uncomfortable from the staring, edged toward one of the darker corners of the room, near the Akatsuki. Suigetsu noticed the Mizukage and, in a moment of stupidity, winked in her direction, triggering a somewhat violent response from Karin. Sasuke just… stared. Sasuke just stared, at everyone, one by one.

At one point, Hiashi caught his eyes, and Sasuke felt something click in the back of his head. After quite a while spent travelling with and in close living quarters as Hyuuga Neji, Sasuke had developed the habit of engaging in a short stare-down whenever his eyes hit the gaze of a Byakugan, and Neji had developed a similar habit in return. As a result, the 'click' that occurred when Sasuke met Hiashi's gaze was a result of several weeks of unintentional conditioning, which caused Sasuke to almost immediately stage a similar staring contest with Hiashi, who stared back if for no other reason than that he wanted to keep an eye on what he assumed was the most dangerous of the new arrivals.

This continued until Suigetsu annoyed Karin enough that she managed to punch him with the force required to cause part of Suigetsu's head to splash into Sasuke's eyes. Of course, Sasuke shut his eyes immediately in reflex, and Karin started simultaneously worrying over him and attempting to 'chastise' Suigetsu.

"This is ridiculous." Onoki grumbled, and was surprised when Deidara, who normally made it a point to disagree with him on, well, everything, nodded in agreement.

"I know, they've been arguing for over a minute and no one's threatened to kill the both of them yet, un. There haven't even been any lasting injuries!" Deidara exclaimed, shaking his head in mock surprise.

…Maybe Deidara wasn't quite agreeing with the old man after all.

That was the point when Tobi swirled in with the no-longer-hostages.

Sai was the first to stand, of the four, even as Tobi disappeared once more. He looked around the room, appearing slightly bemused, until his eyes landed on Tsunade, at which point they widened, if only slightly. He bowed low, bending at the waist. "Hokage-sama. I apologize for my extended leave. It was, for reasons you have likely already discerned, unavoidable."

Tsunade raised an eyebrow at that. "Actually, I'm surprised to see that you're still alive. I would have thought that you would have exterminated yourself after being caught due to Danzo's… conditioning."

The conversation was interrupted as Shikaku pushed his way past the assembled group and grabbed Shikamaru by the shoulders, staring him in the eyes intently.

There was a long, long silence, broken by Sai.

Sai's comment will not be broadcasted, due to the fact that it caused Karin, Mei, Tsunade, and Temari to all threaten him with castration, some more loudly and in more detail than others. It would also force the rating up far beyond what I am comfortable with. TenTen just facepalmed, having gotten used to Sai's lack of certain social maturity over the past several months. Karin had also had the time, but her temper was naturally shorter and more volatile than TenTen's, which meant that she ended up taking out her anger on Suigetsu after he laughed, quite loudly, at what Sai had said. Shikamaru, sorry, Shika-chan just sighed and dropped her head, shaking it slightly.

Sai tilted his head, the false smile leaving his face. "Did I say something wrong?"

"Yes." Shika-chan turned her head to the side, staring at him with an expression bordering on boredom. "You did." She turned her gaze to the rest of the room, studiously avoiding Shikaku's rapidly twitching face. "Ignore him. When it comes to people, he's an idiot."

"Ain't that the truth…" Hidan muttered, grinning slightly even as Deidara elbowed him in the ribs.

"Shikamaru…?" Shikaku seemed half frozen, though his voice was still loud enough to be heard.

Everyone ignored the fact that Neji drifted over to speak with Hiashi, TenTen trailing after him for lack of anything better to do at the moment, but hesitated and decided to report to Tsunade instead, since someone had to do it, and she never passed up a chance to speak to her idol.

"…Yeah." Shika-chan muttered, her ears coming down to lay as flat as they could as her tail dropped to wrap around one of her legs, somewhat defensive. "This was Deidara's doing."

Sai came up behind Shika-chan and reached up to softly pinch her ears, rubbing his fingers back and forth across the somewhat unnatural appendages. "If it is any consolation, the fur is quite soft."

"Sai, go away. Please." Shika-chan ground out.

Sai didn't seem to hear her, having grabbed one of Shikaku's hands and brought it up to his son's, now daughter's, head. Shikaku stared at Sai as though the boy were a madman. "See? And they are as sensitive as a real cat's, so if you scratch them in the right spot, she begins to purr."

"…Sai, shut up."

"But—"

"You're being troublesome." Shika-chan crossed her arms, twitching her ears out of his grasp and turning her head to the side to glare at him out of the corner of her eye. "_Stop_."

Sai stared at her, then nodded and gave her one of his characteristic fake smiles. "Ah. I see. You wish to be reunited with your family in peace. As I am not family, I am unwelcome in the situation. I will leave you."

He turned and walked over to where Tsunade was, stopped next to Jiraiya, looked around the room at the other guards, and then stood next to his leader, smiling away.

The other guards, and even the Kage, quickly deemed him one of the most unnerving people they had ever seen, barring the ones that were just outright creepy in a dangerous way, like Orochimaru. Sai was just… he fell into that point where he didn't seem quite human, but he was close enough that it unnerved people.

Kankuro came back in with Naruto, Kakashi, and Tsume (along with Kuromaru) at that moment, strangely coinciding with the arrival of Tobi and the leaders.

Naruto's face grew angry as he noticed Tobi, but then he paused as he saw Deidara on the other side of the room, grew slightly hopeful as he saw Sasuke, happy as he saw the returned hostages, concerned as he noticed Jiraiya, mocking when he saw Shika-chan, and outraged when he saw Itachi and Kisame. The lead to his face becoming a strange mish-mash of expressions that twitched uncontrollably and left him horribly confused.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on one's point of view, Tobi decided to take center stage once he noticed Kakashi, though he first glanced at Pein and Konan for agreement.

Once the information that he wasn't _actually_ Madara came out, mostly Deidara's fault, he had been forced to a point of cooperation with the two, rather than being in charge. A simple nod from Pein gave him the go-ahead to play the villain, or whatever they were now, as Pein and Konan turned almost achingly slowly towards the Konoha table.

"Well, hello Kakashi-kun!" The Tobi voice chirped, almost unbelievably bright, and was immediately contrasted by the darker voice that suddenly caused all of Akatsuki hold their breaths. "Would you like to see a little secret?"

His hand was on his mask.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I am… not satisfied with this chapter. I promise you another one tomorrow. Right now, I need some sleep.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	57. Could We Keep It Dramatic For Once?

"_The countries were split so that they were non-contiguous, which is… a recipe for disaster!"  
"Also a delicious soufflé."_

_- My history teacher (Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1948), and then the usual guy_

o.o.o.o.o

Kakashi's visible eye narrowed, wondering just what he had done to garner the 'interest' of this particular Akatsuki member.

"Would the secret be your identity?" Kakashi wagered a guess that the secret would be this, but he couldn't be sure, particularly if the 'secret' ended up being something more along the lines of 'kunai to the face!'

"Well, I _am_ going to take off my mask. Whether or not you recognize me is up to you, though it should be fine… so long as you don't channel the idiocy of the man that calls himself your 'Eternal Rival.'" Tobi sounded amused, darkly so, as though he was mocking Kakashi with everything he had. Then again, he probably was.

"Gai isn't an idiot." Despite Kakashi's own tendency to mess with the Green Beast, he felt compelled to defend the man that had grown to be his closest friend over the years.

"Sure, he isn't." Tobi reached for his mask again, but was interrupted by Naruto.

"Wait, you're not just wearing another mask under that one, are you?"

There were several seconds of silence, barring heated whispers that were passing mostly unnoticed between Jiraiya, Pein, and Konan.

"…Where the _h*ll_ did you get _that_ idea?"

Naruto pointed at Kakashi.

Tobi stared for a second. "Bullsh*t."

"Er… no, it's not." Kakashi admitted.

Tobi sighed and just reached up for his mask one last time. "And now that you have successfully shattered all the drama that I tried to build up, I'm just going to pull off the mask and avoid the fanfare."

"Boring, un."

"Shut up, brat." Sasori snapped, more through force of habit than genuine irritation.

"In any case…" Tobi sent several waves of annoyance towards the two artists. "Allow your eyes to feast on what may be the worst revelation of your reasonable-length life."

With a certain amount of flourish, since he was still a little prone to dramatization, despite it all, Tobi pulled off his mask, exposing his mutilated face to the world.

Kakashi's jaw worked up and down as he tried to come to terms with what he was seeing, even as Naruto wondered just what was going on. Tsume, Hiashi, and Shikaku all took a closer look at the man in the center of the room, trying to call up memories that hovered just out of reach.

"Forget your moisturizer, un?"

"Deidara, would you stop trying to ruin all my dramatic set-ups? I'd like to see one actually play through for once." Obito shot the blond a withering glare.

Deidara just shrugged. "It was getting boring, un."

"Then eavesdrop on Konan and Pein's conversation or something." Obito waved a hand dismissively.

"…Nah." Deidara crossed his arms, leaning back to put more weight on Hidan's chest and tugging Kurotsuchi slightly off-balance.

"You are incorrigible."

"Yes. Yes, I am, un." Deidara grinned cheekily at the older shinobi.

Kakashi finally seemed to speak, his extended, staggered silence eerily reminiscent of the one that Shikaku had displayed nary a few minutes earlier. However, Kakashi's voice was still quieter, whispery and cracking. "…Obito?"

"Surprised?" Obito laughed humorlessly. "Never came back for the body, did you?"

"What the—of course we did!" The accusation knocked Kakashi out of his stupor, and gave Obito a pause. "But by the time we came back, you were already gone!"

"And you didn't find that suspicious at all? Didn't try to start a search? I know you already had some of your pack by then." Obito's every word dripped with sarcasm and suppressed anger.

"The bodies of the Iwa nin that were there were gone as well. We assumed that the enemy, no offense to present company, took your body as well! You were a supposedly dead Uchiha in the middle of a war with no guard, and a working Sharingan! We thought they took you to get at the eye, and trust me, there was no trail for us to follow!" Kakashi was nearly panting from all the yelling now. The entire situation was just FUBAR, and when his _dead best friend_ showed up as _the enemy_ and said that it was _Kakashi's fault_ that he was so messed up…

Well. Suffice to say, Kakashi wasn't happy.

Obito kept his eyes trained on Kakashi for several seconds, betraying no emotion, and then turned to Zetsu.

"…What? **Stop staring at us; it's annoying.**" Zetsu shifted under the stare.

"Is what he said true?"

"**I wasn't even created yet.** And I was too busy underground keeping watch over you for Madara. Didn't have any clones up on the surface beyond guards."

Obito's eyes narrowed and he swung his gaze back over to Kakashi. Two eyes met one, and then didn't move at all.

The undeniably awkward situation was broken by none other than Sai.

"Would this situation be one that is put under the label of awkward?" The pale boy tilted his head to the side and looked over at TenTen, the person that was currently closest to him.

"…Yes, Sai. This situation was very awkward."

"Was?"

"You broke the tension. I think. Maybe. Can't you ask someone else?" TenTen seemed eager to get out of the job of explaining 'awkward' to Sai, and meandered over to Neji and Hiashi in an attempt to get away.

Sai blinked and turned to Shika-chan. "Shikamaru?"

"…Troublesome."

This was the point at which the focus of the room at large would normally return to the action, over by Kakashi and Obito, but instead ended up shifting to Jiraiya as he, quite loudly, shouted out a line that was said by many an overprotective father, grandfather, uncle, or other male relative across the world at some point in their lives.

"You're _pregnant?_"

Konan introduced her forehead to her palm. "…Yes."

"But, but, but," Jiraiya pointed back and forth between Konan and the Deva Path thoroughly confused and somewhat disgusted.

"Get your head out of the gutter, _sensei._" Konan stressed the last word as though it were something unclean. "It was due to a scroll that Deidara and Sasori pilfered from one of Orochimaru's abandoned bases after his death. It outlined a technique called artificial insemination that allowed for impregnation without intercourse."

Jiraiya opened his mouth, but was cut off by Tsunade.

"If you say anything about how that takes all the fun out of it, I will break your ribs." Her tone was unbearably pleasant.

(This, of course, caused another confused conversation between Sai and Shikamaru.)

Jiraiya shook his head, seeming slightly affronted. "I wasn't going to say that, hime. I can be serious when necessary, as you very well know."

"Sasuke!" And Naruto finally skipped to the part that he would have done immediately upon entering the room, had he not been distracted by the many people that would have until very recently, tried to kill him.

Sasuke stepped to the side, pulling Suigetsu into his place. He knew that, had this been a true battle, this move would have either failed to work or ended in Suigetsu becoming a red stain on the ground, but this was not a true battle. This was a situation where he could take advantage of his 'status' and influence events for the sake of an outcome that would entertain people. As Naruto crashing into Suigetsu was a humorous event, the movement could occur.

Sasuke was rather proud of how thoroughly he had analyzed the ways he could take advantage of being the Irrationality Locus.

Of course, then Naruto grabbed his shoulders anyway, and started shaking him back and forth, yelling in his face, and, oh Kami, Naruto was literally _spitting_ mad, wasn't he? Ugh, he'd have to wash his 'shirt' soon, because this was just disgusting.

"Excuse me." The low, authoritative voice drifted over the room, quelling most of the arguments. Pein had moved to stand at the center, slowly pacing the edge of the center to address the entire room. The Kage all narrowed their eyes at him, while the rest of the non-Akatsuki stilled their movements at the tone that seemed to strike deep into their bones and demand that they listen.

"…Thank you for your attention." Pein's ripple-like eyes moved slowly over the room, focusing on the Kage and Mifune one by one. "I assume that my subordinates already explained much of the situation to you, regarding the bijuu and the coming… apocalypse?"

"The _supposed_ apocalypse." Onoki clarified, arms folded across his chest. "We haven't been shown any proof yet, now have we?"

Pein turned his gaze on Onoki, and then didn't turn for approximately 28 seconds. He eventually looked over at Hidan and Deidara, and nodded at them. "Deidara, I believe Hidan made several… _enhancements_ to your scope."

Deidara blinked, and then pouted at her esteemed leader. "Do I have to, un? I don't want that old gasbag wearing my scope! It's nice and pretty and shiny, un, and he's… ew."

"_Deidara_." Pein's tone brooked no argument, and Deidara sighed, tossing the named instrument over.

"Fine… don't have to like it, though, un." Deidara crossed his arms and pouted, an expression that didn't look nearly as appropriate as it would have on his female face.

Pein snatched the scope out of the air, and then held it up for all the Kage to see clearly. "Now, which of you would like to see the world through a priest's eyes first?"

"Not me." Tsunade spoke immediately, and continued without a pause as people sent questioning stares her way, glowering back. "If that thing is a trap, then I'd be better off waiting in case someone needs to be healed. We all know d*mn well that I'm the best medic here, and I'm sure as h*ll not letting you take me out first."

She crossed her arms under her impressive bosom and glared around the room, daring them to argue.

Pein didn't react, simply let his eyes cross over the rest of the Kage. Onoki was too paranoid, and Gaara had already had less than pleasant dealings with the Akatsuki. None of the Kage were the type to sacrifice a guard, and Tsunade had already demanded to be kept for last in case she was needed. That left Mei and Ei, as well as possibly Mifune. The three of them were seated one next to the other, with Mifune at the center. Pein made his intentions clear as his eyes traced over the three, head turning from one side to the other with unnerving, inhuman regularity, and finally stopped on Ei when the man held the hand out, demanding.

"Fine. I'll see whatever the h*'ll it is that you're trying to convince us with."

"Just don't crush it, un!"

The noise of a man-made tail smacking against a rather hairy head was heard clearly.

Ei grunted, an audible show of his irritation, but held the scope up to his eye anyway.

"I would suggest looking at Uchiha Sasuke, if you want to see what it is that we wish for you to see." Pein suggested, and his tone would have been light, had it been capable of expressing such a sentiment after so many years without.

Ei sucked in a breath as he saw the oily spillage of irrationality that circled the littlest Uchiha.

"…What the f***?"

Hidan grinned. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Yeah, I think I'll end it there. Would have had it out a few hours earlier, but my dad and brother decided to go see Despicable Me 2 (ended up seeing Pacific Rim instead, and by the gods, it was amazing; the CGI was **_**beautiful**_**).**

**Oh, and for those of you who were wondering about my IB DP exams and scores, well…**

**I passed! The specifics:**

Extended Essay: C  
TOK Essay: B  
Overall Essay points: +1 (Could have been better, but good enough to get bonus points.)

SL Physics: 4 (I knew this already.)  
SL Spanish: 4 (I'm not sure how I passed this one, but it did.)  
SL Psychology: 5 (Yay~!)  
HL English: 5 (I knew I'd do well on this one.)  
HL History: 4 (Better than expected.)  
HL Math: 3 (I failed it...)  
Overall Exam points: 25

Overall score: 26

**If you're unfamiliar with IB scoring, then you need 24 points from the tests to graduate (I got 25), and you can't get a two or less on any test unless you get sixes and sevens on everything else. So I passed, if barely, and I'm getting my IB DP diploma!**

**If you want more information on IB, feel free to ask me.**

**Remember: poll, contest, reviews. Love you all!**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	58. A Sudden Arrival

"_So it was the end of the British __**man-date**__. Did they break up?"_

_- The usual guy. The topic? Causes of the Arab-Israeli conflict._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I think I might've butchered Mei and Kurotsuchi's characters…**

**And my only excuse for Kakashi is that I watched abridged series. Several of them. Actually, use that excuse for the entire second half of the chapter. I'm still a little loopy.**

o.o.o.o.o

"Explain, now." Ei demanded, eyes focused on Pein, the figure that seemed, rightfully or not, to be acknowledged as the leader of the intruders.

"It would not be my place to explain." Pein replied smoothly, not at all perturbed by Ei's demeanor. "I assure you, I was just as skeptical as you are when I was first told."

"Then whose place is it?" Onoki asked, a mild vein of spite running through his tone. "And just what is so special about that stupid scope?"

"Excuse me? Stupid? Do you have any idea how—?" Deidara's angry retort was cut off as a wooden tail lashed out and flailed in the air in front of his face. He frowned, mildly put out, and somewhat uncomfortable as Kurotsuchi's hold on his arm had tightened out of anger.

"Enough." Pein ordered, though whether it was to Deidara and Sasori or to the room at large was questionable. "Once you have all taken a moment to see what it is that we are using as part of our evidence, Hidan will explain what he has told us before. And despite whatever interactions you may have had with him in the past, I assure you that he is quite well-versed in the information that is currently necessary."

Mei held out a hand in Ei's direction, beckoning for him to pass the scope. He tossed it, and none too lightly, but the buxom Mizukage caught it without letting even a scratch cross its surface. She seemed quite happy for an excuse to stare at Sasuke for a few seconds, though her smirk gradually turned to a more calculating and cautious look. "Interesting…"

The scope was passed around the room, first to the various Kage (and Mifune), and then among the guards and the intruding team from Konoha. Tsunade still refused to take it herself until she was sure that everyone else had gone, but once she did, she went quiet and still. She spoke the same words that had already been said dozens of times, stared Pein straight in the eyes and did her best to intimidate him. "An explanation. Now."

Pein pointed at Hidan, who moved towards the center of the room, flashing Deidara an apologetic but still cocky smirk as he left. Deidara just rolled his eyes and stuck out his tongue at his fiancé.

"So…" He turned in the middle of the room, looking around at everyone there. "…'Sup?"

There was no answer, just glares and deadpan stares from around the room, and when Hidan opened his mouth again, Kakuzu cut him off instantly. "If you say something about a tough crowd and pretend you're some hotshot stand-up comedian, I will eviscerate you."

Beat.

"…_Anyway_…" Hidan turned away, ignoring his partner's violent threat and the somewhat disturbed reactions that many of the room's occupants had exhibited. "Hey. I'm Hidan. It's a f**king pleasure to meet you. I don't want your numbers. I'm a Jashinist priest, the last one left, and I'm going to explain and possibly prove the secrets of the universe to you. The 'prove' part might not happen, depending on whether or not the world ends."

"Can I help, un?" Deidara sounded strangely helpful.

"Prove me right by ending the world?" Hidan seemed perturbed. "That's nice, but it's kind of the opposite of what I was—"

"No, no, I meant: can I help explain, un?" Deidara interrupted.

"Oh." Hidan blinked, and then shrugged. "Sure. You know almost as much as I do about the relevant sh*t."

"True." Deidara took a step forward, and then paused, looking back at Kurotsuchi. "Can you let go, un? I mean, it was kind of cute and funny at first, but now it's just… un."

"How eloquent." Sasori deadpanned.

"_Moving on!_" Hidan went back to explaining, or started to, anyway, as Deidara finally managed to convince Kurotsuchi that, no, he wasn't going to leave now, un, because he was busy, and it would be pointless, un, probably.

"—Which basically means that Deidara's kind of the focus of a lot of events that are happening. That's kind of why he could take advantage of the fact that Little Red-Eyes over there is the Locus."

"I survived the impossible, un." Deidara gave them all a 'V for Victory' sign, smiling widely.

"Oh really?" Mei spoke almost languorously, smirking as she leaned forward across the desk. "And what makes you so special, boy?"

Deidara snorted and flipped his hair, and then looked Mei right in the eyes. "B*tch, please. I'm fabulous."™

Mei stared silently for a second, and then began to chuckle. "You are a strange one, aren't you?"

"Of course I am." Deidara heard his watch beep, and glanced down.

"Deidara, no." At least five different voices spoke at once.

Konan was the only one that continued it. "Not now. You can do it later. You can wait a few hours."

Deidara pouted and crossed his arms, but it was obvious that he wasn't all that put out by being banned from his favorite game. "Fine~, un…"

"And just what did the beeping of the wa—" Gaara's question was cut off by, of all people, Neji.

"Don't ask. Please." Neji's voice wasn't quite strong, or particularly stable, but it got the message across.

Come to think of it, Neji looked rather peaky. And nauseous. Actually, given his reaction to Tobi's teleportation the first time, it was a surprise that he hadn't vomited yet.

"Do you have any janitors, un?" Deidara broke the silence, inquisitive.

Deidara was then quickly put into a corner with a makeshift gag of Kakuzu Threads™ stuffed into his mouth.

Kakashi looked rather disturbed. This was partially due to residual shock from Obito and his… revelation, and partially due to the fact that he alone understood the gory and gleeful threats that Deidara was spouting.

Sometimes, it didn't pay to speak Muffled.

Oh sure, it helped _sometimes_.

But more often, it only served to irritate him.

Even though it was unavoidable.

Like when he was walking through ANBU prisons. Gagged prisoners were gagged for a reason. Understanding them was _not_ conducive to his mental stability, or his ability to sleep at night.

One of the few drawbacks to his mask…

"So, will you f**king help us or not?" Hidan demanded, crossing his arms and alternating his stare between Tsunade, Onoki, and Ei.

Tsunade needed to agree because of Naruto, who had the Kyuubi™.

Ei needed to agree because of Killer Bee, who had the Hachibi.™

Onoki needed to agree because of the badlands near Iwa, which were the only places with big enough, flat enough rocks to draw the entire Jashinist Symbol©.

"By giving you their bijuu, we would be killing them." Tsunade pointed out, hands crossed over her enormous chest (stop sneaking peeks, Jiraiya; you're not fooling anyone), glaring at Hidan. "If this is all some elaborate ruse, then you'd be weakening us immensely by taking away two of our most powerful fighers."

Hidan scratched the back of his head. "Well, it does work better with the entire bijuu…"

There was a long silence, broken by Gaara, the only person in the room that was both a Kage and a (former) Jinchuuriki.

(Naruto doesn't count, as he is only Hokage in his dreams.)

"What you're saying is that you could have completed _all_ of your plans without actually _killing_ any of the Jinchuuriki, but did anyway."

Hidan rolled his eyes. "Listen, up until a few months ago, this s*** wasn't big enough to actually force us to do anything. Back then most of the organization was convinced we were taking over the world… or we said that were, anyway. I don't think any of us actually bought that cr*p."

"Nope."

"Not a chance."

"I was undercover."

"MMMPH-SHMMBTH-GRRRRRRNNNNN…un."

"…"

"Are we done yet?"

"_Anyway_…" Hidan spoke over the voices, though he quickly spouted off a short list of obscenities under his breath before continuing. "Even if we only ever _said_ that that was our goal, taking over the world is kind of impossible when there isn't a world to take over anymore."

"You still didn't have to kill them!" Naruto shouted, pointing at Hidan accusingly.

"For f**k's sake, we were villains until a few chapters ago!" The Jashinist shouted, his face twitching.

"But—"

"Wait, chapter?"

Sasori 'distracted' the supposed audience. "Oh look, an incoming scene break."

o.o.o.o.o

Hinata, Kiba, Kurenai, and Shino sat in a circle in the hospital, Hinata and Kiba still not allowed out. Kurenai's baby was in a crib in the corner, and Akamaru was lying on the floor by Kiba's feet.

"So… you got any threes?"

"Kiba, you always ask for threes."

"Shut up, Shino."

o.o.o.o.o

Sasuke's eye twitched, drawing the attention of both Naruto and Karin. Karin, because she was in love with him and a medic that needed to watch out for signs of ill health, and Naruto, because he was in love with him and a friend who… wait, that's not right… is it?

"Huh." Hidan tilted his head. "You're getting good with that, Sasori."

"Your compliment disgusts me."

Tsunade threw a rock at Hidan's head. It wasn't quite clear where the rock came from, though several people later placed bets that she had had it hidden in Tsunade's Secret Compartment.™

"What the f**k, b****?" Hidan yelped, dodging.

"Finish telling us about what you meant by 'the entire bijuu.'" The Hokage growled, fist on the desk.

"The more of the bijuu we have, the more likely it is to work right." Hidan groaned. "It would work with only a bit of each beast, yeah, but it would be more likely to f**k up."

"Well, I mean, I guess it could…" Hidan's stare grew distant, and he started mouthing words to himself. After a few seconds, he frowned and started moving his hands as though counting something.

Then he sighed. "Hold on, I need to call someone for advice."

"You what?"

The room only grew more confused, and mildly disgusted, as Hidan stabbed himself in the arm, drew a Jashinist symbol, sat down with his palms together, and began to chant in such an ancient form of their language that they only understood one out of every ten words he spoke.

After a minute and a half, where everyone who tried to interrupt was shushed by various Akatsuki members, and Hidan's skin had long since bled black and white, a strange blue mist drifted up and out of the symbol, forming a hologram.

A feminine visage looked out at them, the body slim but tall. The hair was bundled up into a bun, and the glasses covering her narrowed grey eyes made her look like a stern librarian.

"Who are you?" Mifune asked, voice level.

"…I am Amaterasu."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Whoa! Did anyone see that coming? Because I didn't. Sometimes, I have plot points planned out **_**months **_**in advance, like the thing with Shikamaru and the others being taken hostage, or my ending for this (which is going to destroy a certain pattern that's been established over the course of the story and have you all out for my blood), or using artificial insemination for Konan's pregnancy, and sometimes, plot points come out of nowhere, on a whim, like Amaterasu's appearance.**

**I'M SO SORRY. The chapter is late. Disgustingly late. I've been suffering writer's block. I have no other excuse. Feel free to pile the shame on my back. I deserve it.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	59. Goddess of the Cursed Flames

"_No, there are definitely people like [the usual guy] out there, and they _all _work in the government. That is definitely where he's going to end up: working in the government someday."  
"In the government entomology department?"_

_- Uh… My history teacher and a student. It's about Brits during the Suez Crisis in '56. And the fact that the usual guy is planning on studying entomology._

o.o.o.o.o

The eyes of most of the people in the room turned to Itachi at that proclamation.

Stories of the old gods of Japanese myth did not exist in the world of shinobi, or if they had, they had been long lost to the sands of time. As a result, the one place where they had heard such a name before was in one of the two signature attacks of one Uchiha Itachi.

This was only exacerbated by the fact that the uniform that Amaterasu wore, a rather utilitarian dress, dissolved into flickering black flames past her knees.

"I know nothing of this." Itachi immediately ascertained, and then refused to speak further.

Amaterasu smiled humorlessly at that, and then conjured up an office chair from the blue mist that was still emanating from the sign that surrounded Hidan, sitting down in it primly. Hidan had not moved from his place when Amaterasu had shown up, simply continued to chant on the ground with his legs crossed and his palms together, the prayer beads looped around his fingers.

Deidara struggled on the ground, trying to speak around the gag that Kakuzu had put on him.

"Kakuzu…" Pein's tone brooked no argument, and it was clear why. Next to Hidan himself, Deidara was probably the one that would know how to speak with a real goddess the best.

Sasori never really did get around to admitting that he had spoken with Jashin.

Deidara got up, dusting himself off, and strode over to sit on Onoki's desk, right in front of the old man's bulbous nose, and faced Amaterasu, one hand up in a cheery wave. "Yo."

Amaterasu blinked at him, not exactly keen on returning such a casual greeting. "Hello."

"I heard you make some awesome cookies, un. _Literally_ divine!"

Several people twitched at that, and Konan brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of her nose in mild frustration.

Amaterasu's lip curled into a smirk. "I suppose you could say that."

"Deidara." Pein's voice drew the blonde man's attention, deep and authoritative.

"Yeah?"

"Back to the issues of actual importance?" Despite the tone, it was clearly not a suggestion.

Deidara sighed and turned to Amaterasu, who sat back in her seat and crossed her arms.

"So, we wanted to ask a few questions about the whole Juubi recreation thing, un." Deidara rubbed the back of his neck. "We've got seven of them… okay, un, six and a half, but we know for sure we can get the other half of the Sanbi if Konoha cooperates, un, but the other two are still sealed into people, and those people probably don't want to die, so…"

"Like the boy with the Kyuubi behind me." Amaterasu said, not bothering to turn around in her swivel chair to face the subject of conversation. "Or the man several kilometers away with the Hachibi."

Ei grunted. "If you're some hotshot goddess, then do you at least know their names?"

"Why would I care for the names of mortals?" There was a hint of a smile in Amaterasu's eyes, and then her lips curled into a grin. "Though yes, I do know the names of Killer Bee and Namikaze-Uzumaki Naruto."

"Wait, Namikaze?" Onoki spluttered.

"Yes." Amaterasu didn't elaborate.

Ei shook his head, smirking at the minor goddess. "I mean the bijuu."

"But of course." Amaterasu seemed slightly bored by the question. "Shukaku, Matatabi, Isobu, Son Goku, Kokuo, Saiken, Choumei, Gyuuki, and Kurama."

There was silence, and the Raikage's smirk disappeared. Finding out the Hachibi's name would have been fairly easy, given that Bee made no secret of it, and Shukaku was known widely, but the rest were…

Ei snapped his head over to Naruto. "Brat! Ask the Kyuubi what its name is!"

"What?" Naruto squawked.

"Do you want to check to see if she's telling the truth or—"

"The seal on him prevents such easy communication as your brother and Gyuuki possess." Amaterasu waved the matter aside, and then spun in her office chair to point at Naruto. "You boy, come here. I may not be quite so accomplished in the area of seals as Tsukuyomi, but I know well enough."

Naruto blinked, and then looked around. Jiraiya and Tsunade were glaring at Amaterasu, and seemed pretty happy to keep him from going a single centimeter closer to the supposed goddess. Most of the people in the room were similarly on guard, and only the Akatsuki, and not even all of them, seemed even close to relaxed.

Amaterasu sighed and made a come-hither motion, and Naruto found himself being yanked forward as though by a fishhook through his jacket. "I told you to come here, boy."

"What the h—" Jiraiya stood up, furious, and began to jump over the table to get to Amaterasu, but stopped against an invisible barrier.

"Enough." Amaterasu turned back to Naruto, who was by now shivering in slight fear, though his stare was defiant. "Now, let us bring out Kurama for a little… talk."

"Wait, what?!" Naruto yelped.

Amaterasu ignored him, lowering a hand and placing it against his stomach. When she pulled it away, she pulled a fox out with it.

Nine vibrant tails sprouted from the fox, though they were tied back to the seal on Naruto, who watched in horror. The fox was easily the size of Kuromaru, though far more pointed and streamlined. It looked at Hidan in mild distaste, and then stared up at Amaterasu, baring its teeth.

"**What is your purpose here, Goddess of the Cursed Flames?**" The Kyuubi growled, it's mouth moving strangely to accommodate the human words.

"They wish to know that I was correct in your name." Amaterasu explained, ignoring the cacophony of panicking shinobi. Her glasses glinted darkly in the black light of the flames and the bright shine of the fluorescents above.

"**Foolish.**" The Kyuubi turned on the spot, sneering at the humans in the room, especially Sasuke and Itachi. "**I am Kurama, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the strongest of the Bijuu. You are all but pathetic whelps in my eyes, and—YOU!**"

Kurama bared his teeth and lunged at Obito, only held back by the tails that linked him to Naruto.

The profanities that spilled from the fox's mouth are hereby censored due to the rating.

Hidan, had he not been insensate, would not have blushed. He would have roared with laughter and tossed in a few choice words of his own.

There was a certain amount of uproar at that, with people clamoring all over to have the beast resealed.

Amaterasu finally stood up and walked over, the black flames leaving a trail behind her. She put a finger on the back of Kyuubi's head, and he calmed down, turning 'round to glare at her instead.

"You should return."

"**For what reason? My jailer is an idiot, and the jail itself is a sewer. A **_**sewer**_**.**" Kurama made a face as well as he could, obviously disgusted. "**Would you want to go back there if you didn't have to?**"

"I do not believe so." Amaterasu spoke amiably, hands now clasped together in front of her. She walked closer slowly, and though Kurama seemed to know what she was planning on, he was resigned to his fate. He knew what was going on.

"**Just don't let me lose my mind, Amaterasu.**"

She didn't say anything as she pushed him back into the seal.

Naruto promptly fainted out of sheer shock and terror.

"…Well, that went well, un!" Deidara proclaimed brightly.

"It could have been a genjutsu." Onoki proclaimed, and Deidara immediately turned around to give him a look that bordered on a glare.

"We just summoned a goddess, un. She is standing right there and effortlessly drew out and controlled the Kyuubi. What more do you want, un?"

"Proof." Onoki folded his arms and glared right back.

Amaterasu smiled and interrupted. "Would knowledge of information that I couldn't possibly have otherwise suffice?"

"Of course not."

"Oh, really? Being the secretary of the land of the demons means I have access to a certain level of omniscience." She smiled, and then proceeded to recount several highly embarrassing anecdotes regarding various occupants of the room in lurid detail.

After the first few, most of the room was agreeing that she was actually a goddess, if only to stop her from recounting more cringe-worthy tales.

"Well…" Deidara leaned back in his seat, scratching the back of his head. "That was… enlightening, un."

"I shall take my leave now." Amaterasu's face grew slightly darker. "There is much to be done without Jashin awake."

"Wait!" Deidara jumped off the table, waving his hands in the air in front of him.

"Yes?" Amaterasu was impatient.

"How well is it going to work with only a partial bijuu?"

"Better than none at all, but not as well as the whole thing. Kurama will cooperate if you speak with him, and Gyuuki will as well. You can transfer their tails in completely without taking out the mind as well. It will take a long time for the tails to grow back, but they will survive, and the Juubi will return almost as well as with the full beast."

In a plume of black fire, Amaterasu disappeared.

Hidan slumped over, drained and no longer chanting mindlessly. Deidara leapt down to grab him and croon as Pein looked around at the assorted shinobi leaders.

"Do we have your aid?"

Several still seemed reluctant, but once Mei agreed, the rest quickly followed, Onoki holding on to his beliefs more stubbornly than the others, but he too relented in the end.

"Then let us being planning."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: I'm sorry~! The chapter's late again… *sobs***

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	60. Tepid Waters

"_We can only have class outside if someone pushes [name] in front of a bus on [censored] Avenue."  
"I'll do it!"_

_- My history teacher (during psychology. I have him for both classes), and then, um, just about everyone._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: So… anyone mind explaining the sudden drop in reviews after the last chapter? It was a little surprising.**

o.o.o.o.o

The moment the Akatsuki left, the room degenerated into a number of small, closed off conversations.

Or in several cases, extremely loud conversations.

Sasuke grit his teeth in yet another attempt to keep himself from decapitating Naruto.

Sasuke was calm, cool, and collected. He was no longer suffering from that stupid Locus thing. He was no longer trying to kill his brother. He was no longer insane.

_He was no longer the kind of person to kill his supposed best friend because they just __**would not shut up**_.

"Geez, you're annoying, huh?"

…Sasuke wasn't sure whether to thank Suigetsu or strangle him.

"What did you just call me?!"

…Definitely strangle.

"Would both of you just shut up?"

Or he could let Karin do it for him.

"Maa, Sasuke, you got yourself quite an interesting new team, huh?"

Oh Kami, not Kakashi.

"I suppose you could say that."

"It's interesting how similar Karin seems to be to Sakura, especially back when she was still in her little fangirl phase. And Suigetsu and Naruto aren't very different either."

Sasuke stayed silent for several seconds, turning to simply glare at Kakashi. The man didn't react, just continued to stare at his book.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Hm? Did you say something, Sasuke?"

…That _was_ irritating. No wonder Gai hated it when Kakashi did that.

Sasuke's meandering thoughts, none of them particularly deep, were interrupted as Tsunade shoved her way through the small mess of people, grabbed him by the shirt, turned him around, and slammed him up against a wall. The side of his chin ground against the stone as she pushed him forward with a strong grip on his hair.

He frowned and immediately began to charge Raiton chakra to his hand…

Only to stop when Tsunade slapped his head, hard enough to startle, but not enough to concuss.

"Stop that." She ordered, and yanked down his shirt. "Jiraiya!"

Sasuke's eyes widened, and he immediately began to charge chakra into his hand again.

He felt a strong grip around his wrist, and the chakra fizzled out, almost by accident. Sasuke growled, both at the disappearance of his favorite technique and at the cold, wet, slimy lines that he could feel being drawn over his back.

"You know," Kakashi's voice floated to his ear. "It may not be very useful in battle, but if an opponent is immobilized, I _can_ actually negate the Chidori. I invented it, after all. I know how it works far better than you do."

Sasuke growled again, and then gasped as he felt his back start to _burn_.

Tsunade let go of him, and he unceremoniously fell to the ground. Karin, who had apparently been held back by Tsume (Juugo had needed to be held back by _Gaara_; Suigetsu had just started flirting with the Mizukage, the b*st*rd), ran forward and started to fuss over him, glaring at Tsunade. She didn't dare _attack_ the Hokage, of course, because she wasn't suicidal, but she was completely justified in glaring at her.

Sasuke groaned and sat up, twisting his head in a futile attempt to see the probably-a-seal on his back that he wouldn't be able to understand anyway.

Needless to say, he failed in that endeavor.

With Karin's help, he sat up and pulled his shirt back on. He glared at Tsunade's back, since she'd already turned around to start discussing things with Tsume and Jiraiya. Kakashi had drawn Naruto aside for Kami-knows-what, and Shikaku and Hiashi probably would have been busy in the discussion with Tsunade and co., but they were busy talking to their own recently returned charges. Actually, Sasuke could see Neji and Hiashi from where he was, and…

He snapped his head over to Karin, and his eyes landed on her neck.

"It's gone." Sasuke muttered.

"What?" Karin blinked at him.

His hand drifted up to waft through the air near her neck, as though it was just a genjutsu hiding the fact that _the collar was gone_.

Obviously, it wasn't. He would have noticed if it were. Because he was an Uchiha. And genjutsu was the Uchiha clan's collective b****.

Karin's eyes widened and her hands flew up to her neck. Sasuke had to catch himself a little when she let go of him, but overall, he was fine.

"The collar's gone!" She exclaimed. Well, squealed, really. But it was a happy squeal. It wasn't a fangirl squeal. Sasuke's nerves were safe for today.

Sasuke watched in some slight, hidden amusement as five other people in the room reached for their necks in surprise.

"When did he get rid of them?" Karin mused allowed, and Sasuke found his attention drawn back to her.

"There a large amount of clay dust on the neck of your jacket." Sasuke pointed.

"So… he dissolved them just before leaving?" Karin frowned. "I should have noticed the chakra expenditure from that, though."

"Does it matter?" Sasuke didn't really see the point in worrying about it now.

"Of course it does!" Karin seemed rather affronted. "I'm supposed to be one of the best sensors out there! If I couldn't tell that this was going on, then how can I—?!"

Karin was cut off, as was most of the room, as Naruto shouted in perfectly justified shock.

"Shikamaru! You're still a cat girl! He didn't change you back!"

Shikamaru glared at Naruto as all the eyes in the room turned to her.

"…Troublesome…"

o.o.o.o.o

"You _didn't_."

"You're right, un, I didn't." Deidara grinned at Hidan, looping her arm through his.

"You can't just… never mind…" Hidan sighed and shook his head, chuckling. "You're such a sadistic a** sometimes."

"And you're not, un?" Deidara smirked, bumping her hip into Hidan's. "At least this wasn't painful sadism, un."

"PMS."

"Side-effect."

Hidan stared at her with lidded eyes, his expression utterly unamused.

And then he burst into laughter.

"See, I knew you agreed with me, un." Deidara grinned, flopping down on her bed. Hidan lay down next to her, stretching and yawning widely.

"Well, yeah… I kind of wanted to see that deer brat suffer a little more." Hidan admitted.

"Knew it." Deidara laughed, scooting over to lie down on Hidan's chest.

"Of course you f**kin' did." Hidan rolled his eyes.

o.o.o.o.o

As always, the lighting in the room was dim, and the man on the padded chair was alone, his spare bodies once more packed away and in stasis.

"Nagato…?" Konan put a hand on his skinny shoulder. Her voice was laced with concern. "Are you alright?"

Nagato nodded, reaching up to cover her hand with his own. "I'm fine. It was just… a shock."

Konan nodded, not needing to speak to understand what the shock had been. "I… I should go start speaking with the guards, tell them that foreign delegations will be arriving soon."

Nagato nodded, and then a small smile crossed his face, just barely there. "The city seems to know."

Konan ducked her head, slightly embarrassed, but not overly much. Her hand drifted up to her abdomen. "Ah… yes, well, I was going around to the guard towers as I do every month, and one of them was a skilled enough sensor to notice. He begged me for permission to tell his wife and spread the news that 'Amegakure's angel is carrying a holy child in her womb,' or something along those lines."

Nagato laughed softly, glad to have something lighter to distract him from the recent emotional wrench that had been meeting Jiraiya again. "You don't mind." He observed.

"It makes them happy." Konan murmured, sitting down next to Nagato and pulling both of their hands down to rest on her lap. "Their morale is higher since they found out. And if nothing else, morale is a precious commodity to Amegakure."

Nagato nodded. "It always has been."

o.o.o.o.o

"You seriously put a seal like that on the brat?" Tsume looked over at Sasuke in something hovering between petty satisfaction and grudging pity. "Man, that's harsh."

"It had to be done." Tsunade grumbled, arms crossed. "We can't have him running off again."

"But tying him to Uzumaki?" Kuromaru asked from his position next to Tsume. "Isn't that overboard?"

"No." Tsunade's tone brooked no argument.

Of course, Tsume continued questioning and trying to poke holes into the reasoning anyway.

On the other side of the room, Kankuro was busy teasing his sister about just what would happen to her and her not-boyfriend now that said not-boyfriend was a not-girlfriend.

This was going about as well for him as one might expect.

That is to say, he was hiding behind Gaara and laughing loudly as Temari attempted to brutally murder him.

Gaara ignored the both of them, allowing his sand to block the attacks and prevent damage to both the room and its occupants. He was too busy talking to Ei to care about what was happening behind and beside him. Ei was trying to convince at least one person, starting with Gaara, that he should be allowed to demand that Karin find Bee. Gaara remained unconvinced.

Ei's guards were already writing out messages to have someone go find Bee.

Suigetsu was flirting with Mei. Chojuro was watching in envy. Ao was watching in disapproval (to his amusement when he noticed, so was Karin). Mei was amused by Suigetsu and had plenty of fun with playing along.

Hiashi and Neji were talking quietly in a corner, TenTen and Sai next to them, occasionally throwing in their own comments. Neji periodically shot dirty looks at both the Kumo nin and Ao. Sai remained cheerily oblivious to the tension that continued to rise and fall throughout the room. TenTen remained exasperated with Sai's continued obliviousness.

Karin was still fussing over Sasuke on the ground, and Juugo stood protectively nearby.

Onoki was grumbling to himself. Akatsuchi was just standing next to him, more or less content.

Why was Onoki grumbling, other than just being a cranky old man with a lamentably bad hip?

Well…

o.o.o.o.o

The door to the room slammed open, bringing in something orange and obnoxious other than the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki, something that they had all thought was gone.

"Deidara-sempai, Tobi brought your friend back with him!"

Deidara's eyes flew open, and she shot up to stare in horror at the angry face of Kurotsuchi.

"…Sh*t."

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: Um… yeah. It's a short, transitional chapter. Sorry about that. We'll see more later.**

**And there's an awkward moment amidst all the humor where Konan and Nagato are just sitting in the dark and being all homesy.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


	61. Not So Stoic, Eh?

"_War is like acne. __**It's only a matter of time before it breaks out again.**__"  
"Yes, I will compare my skincare to the deaths of thousands of people."_

_- The usual guy._

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: A lot of people have been asking me how I plan to work around the politics once the Jashin issue has been resolved. That question has a VERY simple answer, one that I've been contemplating since about chapter three or four, and finalized in my mind at some point around chapter ten. And unless I already told you, you're probably not finding out until it actually happens in-story.**

**On the upside, you won't have long to wait until it happens, because GC's in the home stretch now.**

**Oh, and ****capucino uzumaki****? The answer is no. I don't mind people borrowing elements, but what you're suggesting is far, far too much for me to be comfortable with the idea.**

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara grit her teeth, pulling Tobi out into the hall and asking Hidan and Kurotsuchi for a few minutes alone, her tone sugar-sweet.

"What the h*ll, un?" She hissed, shoving him against a wall. "Why did you bring her here?"

She saw him raise an eyebrow through the hole in his mask, but his tone, when he spoke, was high-pitched and immature. "Tobi doesn't know what sempai is talking about!"

"Don't give me that c***, un." Deidara growled.

"Fine." Obito reached up and pushed Deidara away from him until they were a comfortable distance apart. "I had to deal with Kakashi, despite not wanting to, so I see no reason not to force you to deal with this Kurotsuchi girl."

"I dealt with her at the Summit, un!" Deidara protested.

"No, you placated and teased her, and dealt with her hugging you for a while. Then you ignored her." Obito rolled his eyes behind his mask, "Besides, I have to go back and forth between here and Konoha to figure some things out, _and_ work out what to do now that Itachi's being pardoned, since Sasuke's going back, and I'm alive and the oldest. Konoha doesn't know what to do with the clan, and I apparently need to go in order to help or something, especially since they don't want Itachi there until they're sure that he's not going to be attacked by random genin teams with dreams of glory."

"And you're telling me this because…?" Deidara motioned, seeming impatient.

"Because that means that Kakashi's probably going to shadow me at every opportunity." Obito pointed out. "And he wasn't just a friend, he also killed the love of my life before my eyes. You don't have to deal with that when it comes to your friend. You just ditched her and p***ed her off."

Deidara glared at him. "You're just going to mess with Kakashi's head as much as possible instead of actually working through your issues, aren't you, un?"

"Give me some credit, Dei-chan." Obito spoke condescendingly, putting a hand on her shoulder and leaning towards her in a mockery of confiding a secret.

"I am, un." Deidara snorted and slapped his hand away. "I'm not automatically assuming that you'll unleash a bijuu on him for revenge, un."

Obito threw his hands into the air, only half-joking. "One time! You let a bijuu loose on a village _one time_, and suddenly—"

"Oh, screw you, un." Deidara huffed and went back into her room, ignoring Tobi's shout of encouragement.

"Have fun, sempai!"

o.o.o.o.o

Deidara sat in front of Kurotsuchi, arms crossed. Kurotsuchi stared back in the same position, completely unimpressed by the power and irritation of the woman before her, and utterly unfazed by the fact that said woman wasn't currently a man.

"You should really go back to Iwa, un."

Kurotsuchi's eyes narrowed. "Not unless you come home with me."

Deidara hissed out a breath, anger flashing across her face. "That _village_ is no longer my home, un, Kurotsuchi."

"Well, it is mine, and if I'm going home, I'm taking you with me." Kurotsuchi growled. "Five years, Deidara! You left me there without even a _letter_ to tell me that you were okay!"

"You had the Bingo Books, un."

"Oh, yeah, like that's enough." Kurotsuchi spat, sending Deidara the dirtiest glare she could.

"You know what? Fine, un." Deidara stood up, a manic grin beginning to grow across her face. "You want to stay with me as much as possible, un? You want to spend time together like we used to, un? Fine. We'll do that. And I'll take you back to Iwa in the process, un."

Kurotsuchi blinked, suddenly filled with a sense of dread. "What are you—"

"We're gonna _fly_." Deidara intoned, utterly unsympathetic.

Kurotsuchi felt her heart drop down to her stomach.

Oh, sh*t.

o.o.o.o.o

It was on the third day travelling back to Konoha that Sasuke broke.

It was a combination of things, really. Unfortunately, that combination could be traced back to six people out of their fourteen person party.

Juugo was, as always, a non-issue as long as he stayed sane, and seeing as he hadn't had any homicidal rampages yet, Sasuke didn't care; sure, the bird-talking was occasionally a little distracting, but it was fine. He didn't mind the former hostages as much as he would have before, and he didn't really care for Tsume, Kuromaru (the Inuzuka and her hound occasionally starting conversations with Juugo), Shikaku, or Hiashi, which was good, since they barely spared him a glance other than when Tsunade decided to put them on guard duty to make sure they didn't run away. Even Sai was tolerable by this point, and Shikamaru was too busy talking with Tsunade and Shikaku about possible cures for Deidara's punishment to actually care. Neji and TenTen didn't really bother him, and they were usually either talking to Hiashi and Sai respectively, or off in their own little world.

(He was pretty sure that they were making contingency plans for how to avoid dying of broken ribs when Lee and Gai finally saw them again.)

(Or flirting.)

(He tried to avoid thinking about that, though.)

(Especially once he caught the stare from Hiashi that meant the man was on the verge of a heart attack… or something.)

(Hyuuga were hard to read.)

No, the issues could be traced back to the _rest_ of the party.

Kakashi decided that needling Sasuke with bad jokes, crushing lectures, and snide remarks was the best way to spend his time outside of discussing porn with Jiraiya or controlling Sai.

Jiraiya decided that needling Sasuke with the _exact same things_ was the best way to spend _his_ time outside of discussing porn with Kakashi or talking to Tsunade.

Tsunade… Tsunade was just plain _mean_ sometimes. She wasn't necessarily rude or uncouth, or even bad-tempered, but she obviously saw Sasuke as an 'issue' that she couldn't handle gently, since she was perfectly polite to everyone else unless they took the time to irritate her.

The biggest problem, however, came from the people in his own age group.

Karin and Suigetsu spent half their time fighting over Sasuke, because, apparently, Suigetsu's favorite pastime was bugging Karin, mostly about her infatuation with him.

They spent the other half of their time either fighting over or fighting _with_ Naruto. Karin was happy to find a family member, something that Suigetsu used as fuel for more teasing, which lead to more arguments between the two. And while Karin didn't really argue much with Naruto, Suigetsu…

Suigetsu and Naruto _clashed_. They were just too similar in temperament to coexist without giving Sasuke a horrible headache.

The last thing, of course, was that Naruto refused to leave him alone at all.

Not an hour passed without Naruto launching into some monologue about Sakura or ramen or jutsu, or pestering Sasuke with questions about what he'd done while working for Orochimaru, or, increasingly, just what the whole thing with Jashin was about, because he didn't really understand what that albino guy had said.

Sasuke finally turned and grabbed Naruto by the front of the shirt, halting the whole group. Just about everyone's hands drifted toward their weapons, but Naruto's didn't. This probably could have gotten him killed in some situation, but Sasuke wasn't really planning on killing him, so it was all well and good.

"Listen here, idiot." Sasuke hissed. "I am going to explain this _one time_, and if you _still_ haven't gotten it by the end, I will find a way to break this seal and cut off your manhood so that you never spread your _idiocy_ to any unfortunate spawn that you might somehow create."

Naruto nodded, eyes narrowed.

Sasuke dropped him.

"Imagine three countries. Between each country is a bridge. Whenever someone crosses the bridge, they pay a small toll at each end, but they earn that money back in the next country. People go from country A, to country B, to country C, and then back to A. They can't go the other way because a sickness they get in country B can be carried into country A, but the doctors in country C are good enough to heal it. You get it so far?"

Sasuke didn't bother to look up to see if Naruto was following along yet.

"Now, one of those bridges collapses, the one between A and B, because of an earthquake. They string up a rope, but because B is at a higher elevation than A, it's extremely difficult to get from A to B, even if it's fairly easy to go down from B to A. There are a few ninjas that can carry people up, but most people hate the ninjas out of fear and have forgotten why they would want to go to B anyway. Instead, people start using the bridge from A to C more, and while A and C get better and their economies thrive, B is left out of the loop, since the natives to B might carry the disease to C and spread it more than the doctors can handle."

"The Daimyo have tried to rebuild the bridge, but all attempts are met with failure, and the ninjas have started carrying people from A to B without the people's permission, but there's only one ninja left now. The economy in B is collapsing, and even though they don't trade much anymore, if one country's economy collapses, then all of them do. And they can't send money in large packages, because there are bandits that try to steal most of it. So they're trying to start another earthquake to trigger a land bridge, because it's their only hope left."

Sasuke finally turned away from the diagram he had been drawing, and glared at Naruto. "Country A is the land of the living. Country B is the demon realm. Country C is the land of the dead. The ninjas are the Jashinists, and the last ninja is Hidan. The earthquake was the original splitting of the Juubi, and the second earthquake that they're _trying_ to trigger is the rebuilding of the Juubi. The Daimyo are the three gods, Kami, Shinigami, and Jashin. Do you _still_ not get it, you insufferable _moron?_" By this point, Sasuke was grabbing Naruto's shirt again, holding him an inch away from his face.

Naruto stared at Sasuke for a second with a blank expression, and then he reached up and put his hand on Sasuke's, his grip strong enough that the pale boy hissed and glanced down at his hand in pain, releasing Naruto. Sasuke looked back up at Naruto, only to find narrowed blue eyes glaring at him.

"I know I'm not as smart as Shikamaru, or Sakura-chan, or even you, Sasuke. But for what it's worth? I'm _not_ an idiot anymore." He turned and walked away to the front of the group, by Jiraiya and Tsunade, as Sasuke started wondering just what had happened for Naruto to actually be able to pull off a line like that and actually seem something other than pathetic and arrogant.

"Oh, we got a bada** up in here!" Suigetsu laughed for about half a second before a mace smashed its way through his head, courtesy of TenTen.

…At least Sasuke wasn't the only one that found Suigetsu annoying sometimes.

o.o.o.o.o

**A/N: So… there you have it?**

**I've realized that there's a LOT of things that I want to write, for the sake of character development and humor, but can't for the sake of plot and pacing. As a result, I've started to **_**consider**_** writing a set of side stories. CONSIDER. No decision on that yet. It might add too much to my workload.**

**I was recently told that the system I'd set up was still a little confusing, so here's an attempt to simplify it (don't worry, I don't think any of you are stupid; Sasuke explaining it to Naruto was just the best way for it to happen).**

**And I really wanted to have an interaction between Naruto and Sasuke that showcased a few things, namely the fact that Sasuke isn't going to take Naruto's s*** lying down forever, and that Naruto isn't going to put up with Sasuke being a d*** forever. Oh, Naruto'll still consider him a friend, but they're not as… forgiving as canon would have us think, I suppose.**

**Ja ne,**

**Phoenix**


End file.
